
Class r ^^ l 
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ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Ube XTrtbute of a Century 




Colos'^al Head of Lincoln. Iiy tint /.on I'.oriiluni 

(The original \va- i.lacc.i by Coni.'res-. in llic Capitol at Wa-liin^'ton. A bronze 
ri-plira may h.- m'ch al the CliicaU" Historical Society) 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



Zbc Zxibixte of a Century 



1809*1909 



COMMEMORATIVE OF THE LINCOLN CENTENARY AND CONTAINING 
THE PRINCIPAL SPEECHES MADE IN CONNECTION THEREWITH 



EDITED BY 

NATHAN WILLIAM MacCHESNEY 




CHICAGO 

A. C. McCLURG & CO. 

1910 



Copyright, 1910, by tTf^*^fn■kfla 

A. C. McClurg & Co. 
Published May 14, 1910 



A// rights reserved 



PRESS OF THE VAIL COMPANY 
COSHOCTON, U. S. A. 



^zv^z^^'oVzz 



DeMcatet) 

TO THE MEMORY OP 
THE SOLDIERS AND SAILORS OF THE CIVIL WAR 

COMRADES OF MY FATHER 
WHOSE VALOR AND SACRIFICES MADE POSSIBLE 
THE FRUITION OF THE PURPOSES OF LINCOLN 



FOREWORD 

THIS book has grown out of a desire which the editor 
had while Secretary of the Lincoln Centennial Memo- 
rial Committee of One Hundred, appointed by the Mayor 
of Chicago, for a memorial volume which should give per- 
manent form to the many masterly tributes to Lincoln by 
noted men which marked this unique Centenary, and should 
preserve to history the remarkable spirit of the occasion. 

The editor undertook the work, anticipating that it would 
be a considerable task, but with no real conception of its 
magnitude. There are in his library hundreds of unused 
speeches and over sixty thousand clippings with reference 
to the celebration. It has been literally impossible to exam- 
ine the entire material at hand in the few months which 
have elapsed since the Centenary, but the principal ad- 
dresses have been gone through, and while the limits of this 
volume have excluded many of great value which it was 
hoped to bring within the collection, it is believed that those 
published are thoroughly representative of the celebration. 

The editor wishes to give credit to the Lincoln Centennial 
Memorial Committee of Chicago, which, under the guidance of 
Hon. William J. Calhoun as chairman, did such magnificent 
work in the Centenary celebration and whose existence and 
initiative have made the publication of this book possible. 

To the committees, throughout the country and abroad, 
municipal or the result of private enthusiasm and patriotism, 
which have been of notable aid in the work of securing the de- 
sired material for this volume, grateful acknowledgment is due. 

The editor is indebted to the Trustees of the Crerar Fund 
for permission to use the photograph of the yet unveiled 
Saint-Gaudens statue of Lincoln ; to President Henry G. 
Foreman of the South Park Commissioners for the photograph 
used; to Adolph Alexander Weinman, sculptor of the Hod- 

vii 



viii FOREWORD 

genville statue of Lincoln, for a pliotograph of the statue for 
use as an illustration; to his brother sculi)tor, John Gutzon 
Borglum, for an autograph photograph of the famous "Borg- 
lum bust" unveiled in the Senate February 11, 1909; to the 
Rt. lion. Jean Adrien Jusserand, the French Ambassador, 
for the loan from his private collection of the photographic 
reproductions of the letters of Mrs. Lincoln and Victor Hugo; 
to Hon. Robert T, Lincoln for the photograph of the French 
medal; to j\Ir. N. Y. Dallman, Managing Editor of The Illuwis 
State Register of Springfield, for the picture of distinguished 
guests at the Lincoln Tomb; to Mr. Brainard Piatt, Acting 
Managing Editor of The Louisville Courier- Journal for his 
courteous assistance in securing photographs of the presi- 
dential party at the Ilodgenville celebration ; to The Uptown 
Kodackery of Denver, for their prompt courtesy in securing 
for us some exceptionally fine photographs of the Denver cele- 
bration ; to Collier's Weekly, for permission to use President 
Roosevelt's Lincoln speech at Hodgenville; to The Chicago 
Tribune for permission to use the McCutcheon cartoons, and 
to reprint Booker T. Washington's "An Ex-Slave's Tribute 
to Lincoln," and for other courtesies; to the other Chicago 
newspapers, and the newspapers throughout the country, and 
to The Literary Digest, Eeview of Reviews, and other maga- 
zines, for copies of special issues containing information im- 
portant to the purpose of this work. 

The editor here expresses his sense of obligation to his 
wife for her help and suggestions, and to his friend and 
associate, Herbert E. Bradley. 

The editor will be glad to receive from readers of this 
book, copies of any speeches delivered during the Centenary, 
or interesting facts connected with its Commemoration ; and 
would be especially interested in personal recollections of 
Lincoln, or of Lincoln's associates and time. 

Nathan William IVIacChesney. 

Union Lkagtie Ch'b, Chicago, 
Fehrnary, 12, 1910. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 3 

The Unity of the Nation (A Speech of Introduction) 

Hon. William J. Calhoun 11 

Abraham Lincoln: A Man of the People 

President Woodrovv Wilson 14 

A Citizen of No Mean Country {A Speech of Introduction) 

Hon. Frank Hamlin 31 

The Significance of Lincoln 

Hon. J. A. Macdonald 33 

A Memory of Lincoln (A Speech of Introduction.) 

Hon. Charles H. Wacker 58 

Abraham Lincoln of Illinois 

President Edwin Erie Sparks 59 

The Figure of an Age {A Speech of Introduction) 

v^ Hon, Stephen S. Gregory 76 

The Great Commoner 

Dr. Emil G. Hirsch 77 

The Greatest Apostle of Human Liberty {A Speech of Introduc- 
tion ) 

Col. John R. Marshall 88 

The Unfinished Task (A Speech of Introduction) 

Rev. A. J. Carey 89 

The Liberation of the Negro 

Rev. J. W. E. Bowen 91 

Lincoln : The Friend of All Men 

Nathan William MacChesney 99 

The Negro's Place in National Life 

Hon. William J. Calhoun 102 

The Other Side of the Question (A reply to the Speech of W. J. 
Calhoun ) 

Rev. A. J. Carey Ill 

The Cathedral Utterance of Lincoln 

Dr. Charles J. Little 113 

The Literary Side of Lincoln 

Dr. Bernard J. Cigrand 130 



CONTEXTS 

THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION (continued) p_^Qj. 

The Freeport Debate 

Gen. Smith D. Atkins 140 

Two Momentous Meetings 

Maj.-(Jen. Frederick Dent Grant 143 

A Voice from the South 

Hon. J. M. Dickinson 148 

Abraham Lincoln at the Bar of Illinois 

John T. Kichards 154 

The Evolution of the Gettysburg Address 

Hon. John C. Richberg 165 

The Merit of a INIighty Name 

Judge W. G. Ewing 171 

Power in Loneliness 

Judge Peter Stenger Grosscup 175 

THE SPRINGFIELD COJOIEMORATION 183 

Lincoln as an Orator 

Hon. William J. Bryan 185 

Lincoln as France saw him 

Hon. Jean Adrien Jusserand 190 

THE ILLINOIS SUPREME COURT COM^MEMORATION . . .199 
The Centenary of Lincoln 

Nathan William MacChesney 200 

Lincoln's Preparation for the Presidency 

Justice Hand 203 

THE BLOOMINGTON COMMEMORATION 215 

Lincoln the Statesman 

Hon. Adlai E. Stevenson 216 

Lincoln the Lawyer, and his Bloomington Speeches 

R. M. Benjamin 225 

THE PEORIA COMMEMORATION 241 

Lincoln's Diplomacy 

Kogoro Takahira 242 

Lincoln, the Man of the People (I'ocm) 

Edwin Markham 247 

THE HODGENVILLE COMMEMORATION 251 

A Son of Kentucky 

Augustus E. Willson 253 



CONTENTS 

THE HODGENVILLE COMMEMORATION (continued) p^^E 

Abraham Lincoln 

Hon. Theodore Roosevelt 256 

Lincoln and the Lost Cause 

Hon. Luke E. Wright 261 

Abraham Lincoln, Leader and Master of Men 

Gen. James Grant Wilson 267 

The Lincoln Memorial 

Hon. Joseph W. Folk 271 

THE NEW YORK COMMEMORATION . • 275 

Abraham Lincoln at Cooper Institute 

Hon. Joseph Hodges Choate 277 

Lincoln as a Labor Leader 

Rev. Lyman Abbott 280 

One of the Plain People 

Hon. Chauncey M. Depew 294 

THE BOSTON COMMEMORATION 315 

A Vision ( Poem ) 

Julia Ward Howe 317 

The Great Pacificator 

Hon. John D. Long . 318 

Lincoln : "Valiant for Truth" 

Hon. Henry Cabot Lodge 343 

THE CINCINNATI COMMEMORATION 361 

Abraham Lincoln — An Appreciation 

Bishop William F. McDowell 362 

THE ROCHESTER COIklMEMORATION 375 

Lincoln: The True American 

Hon. Charles Evans Hughes 375 

THE MADISON CO^IMEMORATION 385 

The Great Stone Face 

President C. R. Van Hise 386 

The Great Debate; or, The Prophet on the Stump 

Rev. Jenkin Lloyd Jones 389 

THE DENVER COMMEMORATION 417 

Abraham Lincoln: The Perfect Ruler of Men 

Joseph Farrand Tuttle, Jr 418 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

THE WASHINGTON COMMEMORATION 433 

Lincoln and the Character of Anicrican Civilization 

Hon. Joaquim Nabuco 436 

THE PHILADELPHIA COMMEMORATION 441 

Preserver of tlie Union — Saviour of the Republic: Reminiscences 
of Abraham Lincoln 
Major William H. Lambert 442 

THE CORNELL UNIVERSITY COMMEMORATION . . . .461 
Abraham Lincoln: Master of Time 

Hon. Frank S. Black 461 

THE PITTSBURG COMMEMORATION 471 

Lincoln: The Greatest American 

Hon. James Schoolcraft Sherman 472 

THE JANESVILLE COMMEMORATION 481 

The Apostle of Opportunity 

Hon. George R. Peck 481 

An Ex-Slave's Tribute to the Emancipator 

Dr. Booker T. Washington 492 

Lincoln and His Relations witli Congress 

Hon. Shelby M. Cullom 500 

THE COMMEMORATION ABROAD 509 

Manchester, England 511 

Berlin, Germany 518 

Lincoln's Hundredth Birthday (Poem) 

William Morris Davis 522 

The Man for the Hour 

Alexander Montgomery Thackara 524 

Paris, France 527 

From Washington to Lincoln 

Dr. Henry van Dyke 527 

Rome, Italy 

The American Union and Italy 

Hon. Lloyd C. Griscom 532 

The ]Man Lincoln {Poem) 

Wilbur D. Nesbit 535 

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 539 

INDEX 551 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

Colossal Head of Lincoln, by Gutzon Borglum . . . Frontispiece 

Albums containing the Newspaper Clippings concerning the Lin- 
coln Centenary, in the Library of the Editor xxii 

The Lincoln Stamp and Penny and the Lincoln Medal struck for 

the Grand Army of the Republic xxiii 

Facsimile of Mayor Busse's Proclamation 6 

The Two Bronze Tablets erected during the Centenary upon the 

site of the Old Tremont House 18, 19 

Bronze Tablet placed on the Site of the "Wigwam," Chicago, by 

the Chicago Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution . 34 

Republican "Wigwam," in which Lincoln was nominated, 1860 . 35 

Facsimile of Manuscript Tribute from Edwin E. Sparks, President 

of the Pennsylvania State College 60 

Facsimile of Manuscript Tribute from Gen. Smith D. Atkins, of 

Hlinois 61 

Two Lincoln Centenary Cartoons by John T. McCutcheon ... 68 

The Old Tremont House, Chicago 69 

Firing of Presidential Salute by the Illinois Naval Reserve, Feb. 

12, 1909, at the South End of Lincoln Park, Chicago ... 84 

Tomb of Stephen A. Douglas, Chicago 85 

Bronze Tablet inscribed with the Gettysburg Address . . . .116 

Facsimile of Manuscript Tribute from Dr. Charles J. Little, Presi- 
dent of Garrett Biblical Institute, Chicago 117 

Statue of Abraham Lincoln, by Augustus Saint-Gaudens, 1887 . 136 

Statue of Abraham Lincoln, by Augustus Saint-Gaudens, 1907 . . 137 

Facsimiles of Manuscript Tribute from Hon. John M. Dickinson, 

Secretary of War 150, 151 

Bronze Bas-Relief of Lincoln, by C. Pickett 186 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

Portrait of Hon. C. S. Deneen, Governor of Illinois .... 204 

Facsimile of Governor Deneen's Proclamation 205 

Facsimile of the Last Page of Manuscript of Speech made by 

Ambassador Jusserand at Springfield 218 

Facsimile of Manuscript Tribute from Hon. Adlai E. Stevenson 

of Illinois, Ex- Vice-President of the United States .... 219 

Facsimiles of INIanuscript Tribute from Hon. Clark E. Carr, of 

Galesburg, Illinois 232, 233 

Distinguished Guests on Centenary Day at the Tomb of Lincoln 

in Springfield, Illinois 244 

Thomas Lincoln's Home in Illinois, where he died in 1851 . . . 245 

Statue of Abraham Lincoln by Adolph Alexander Weinman, erected 
in the Public Square of Ilodgenville, Kentucky, by tlie State 
of Kentucky and the Lincoln Farm Association .... 258 

The Lincoln Log Cabin near Hodgenville, Kentucky, where Abra- 
ham Lincoln was born 2G2 

Interior of Lincoln Cabin at Hodgenville, Kentucky 263 

Birthplace of Abraham Lincoln near Hodgenville, Kentucky . . 264 

Autographed Portrait of Theodore Roosevelt 265 

The Hodgenville Commemoration: Arrival of President Roose- 
velt — Gathering about the Lincoln Cabin 268 

Laying the Corner Stone of the Lincoln Memorial Building at 

Hodgenville, Kentucky 269 

Facsimiles of Mrs. Lincoln's Letter of Acknowledgment of the 

Medal presented by the Citizens of France .... 286, 287 

Facsimiles of Victor Hugo's Letter accepting Membership on the 

Committee of the French Democracy 298, 299 

Facsimile of Manuscript Tribute from James B. Angell, Presi- 
dent Emeritus of the University of Michigan 320 

Facsimile of IManuscript Tribute from Hon. Henry Cabot Lodge, 

United States Senator from Massachu.setts 346 

Facsimile of Manuscript Tribute from Rev. Lyman T. Abbott, 

Editor of "The Outlook" 347 

Autographed Portrait of Hon. J. G. Cannon 366 

The Peterson House, in which Lincoln died, Washington, D. C. . 367 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

Charles B.. Van Hise, President of the University of Wisconsin, 

reading his Address at the Madison Commemoration . . . 392 

Unveiling of the Bronze Replica of t^ie Statue of Lincoln by 
Weinman at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Com- 
mencement Day, 1909 393 

Veterans of the Grand Army of the Republic in the Denver Cen- 
tenary Parade 420 

Scene in the Colorado Senate Chamber during the Lincoln Cen- 
tenary Commemoration 426 

Scene in the Denver Auditorium during the Lincoln Centenary 

Commemoration 427 

Facsimile of Manuscript Tribute from Seuor Joaquim Nabuco, 

Brazilian Ambassador to the United States 444 

Facsimile of Manuscript Tribute from Wendell Phillips Stafford, 
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the District of 
Columbia 445 

Autographed Portrait of President William H. Taft 450 

Facsimile of Tribute from President Taft 451 

Facsimile of Manuscript Tribute from Dr. Henry van Dyke . . 482 

Medal presented to the Widow of Abraham Lincoln by a Com- 
mittee representing Forty Thousand French Citizens; now in 
the Possession of Hon. Robert T. Lincoln 483 

The Town Hall of Manchester, England 516 

The American Embassy in Berlin, Germany 517 



*' ABRAHAM LINCOLN: THE TRIBUTE 
OF A CENTURY '^ 



^'ABEAHAM LINCOLN: THE TRIBUTE 
OF A CENTURY'^ 

NATHAN WILLIAM MAC CHESNEY 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN is essentially the product of Amer- 
ica. For that very reason he makes a peculiar ap- 
peal to the Amencan people, and, so far as American ideas 
and American ideals represent the aspirations and hopes 
of democracy everywhere, he inspires those who believe in 
these things, wherever they may be found. 

He is the concrete embodiment of the visions of our fore- 
fathers expressed in the Declaration of Independence. A 
product of this country which made that document possible, 
and which was made possible by it, he saved the nation from 
permanent hypocrisy, and democratic institutions from dis- 
aster. He made the performance of the nation square with 
its promises, in the eyes of the world. 

Lincoln, as the product of the typical American environ- 
ment of his period, self-made as most of his fellows were, 
imbued with the ideals of the forefathers and willing to 
fight for them, was the personification of the spirit of the 
nation. Everywhere he attracted men who were filled with 
a kindred spirit ; and he is loved and revered to-day wherever 
that spirit is found. He is Americanism as interpreted by 
Americans. 

His very heredity fitted him for this position. Of Southern 
ancestry originally from the North, he was bom in the South, 
and brought up among people of Southern birth; yet he 
lived his youth, grew to manhood, and reached his maturity 
in a Northern community. He knew and sympathized with 
the South as a Northern man, born and bred, could not have 
done; he grasped the earnestness and the temper of the 
North as it was impossible for a Southern man then to do. 



XX ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

And, as both North and South came to see, when he had been 
taken away, in his hopes and plans he represented the nation. 
He was and is the great national figure of the century. The 
recognition of this fact has been growing year by year since 
the tragic ending of his great life. It is less than half a 
century since his career was ended; yet to-day he stands 
forth as one of the great historical figures of the world. 
Time makes many changes, but none have been more striking 
than the growth of appreciation of Lincoln on the part of 
the South. His miglity passion was for the Union and its 
preservation as the fathers had given it to us, and in this 
love for the Union he included the South as well as the 
North. Differing radically from the South in his view of 
the slavery question, and of the other vital political questions 
of that day, he recognized that he, and the people whose 
convictions he represented, if placed in similar circumstances, 
would in all probability have championed the views held by 
his opponents. He had, therefore, only the kindliest feel- 
ing for the South and for the problems it had to face. 

President Roosevelt has recently said that one of the most 
wonderful of the characteristics of Lincoln was "the ex- 
traordinary w^ay in which he could fight valiantly against 
what he deemed wrong, and yet preserve undiminished his 
love and respect for the brother from whom he differed." 
To-day, as never before, this is recognized by the South, and 
we find its press and people saying that he cared for the 
South not less than for the North; we find the Southern 
people at one with the rest of the nation in paying tribute 
to his memory'; all joining as one people in his eulogy. 
Nothing shows so much as this fact how completely sectional 
feeling has been obliterated since his time. 

"Not less than the North has the South reason to canonize 
him," recently said Colonel Watterson in his Louisville 
Courier- Journal, "for he was the one friend we had at court 
— aside from Grant and Sherman — when friends were most 
in need." 

We are told, too, in the South, that his death was a calamity 



THE TRIBUTE OF A CENTURY xxi 

to it — "the direst misfortune that ever darkened the calendar 
of her woes" — and it seems now to be generally recognized 
that much of the bitterness and humiliation of the recon- 
struction period would have been avoided, had he lived to 
guide the nation through those stormy days. 

This attitude of the South, as expressed by the Southern 
press, is typically illustrated by a recent editorial in The 
Post of Houston, Texas: 

"All men stand ready to concede that in a great crisis he was loyal 
to his convictions of duty, that he bore his great responsibilities with 
infinite patience, and that in all things he was free from sectional 
hatred and personal malice. 

"The people of the South have always felt that his untimely and 
tragic end was one of the severest catastrophes of the war period. 
They believed after the capitulation at Appomattox, that Mr. Lincoln 
would, in his second administration, bend all his energies toward 
reconciliation and binding up the wounds of war. All his utter- 
ances respecting the South were broadly patriotic, sympathetic, and 
expressive of a desire to restore peace, prosperity, and self-govern- 
ment. He sounded no note of exultation or vindictiveness over a 
prostrate country. He seemed to comprehend the woe and hardship 
which rested so heavily on every portion of our devastated domain, 
and he evinced a determination to resist the efforts of those who 
were anxious to put the people under the heel of the conqueror. It 
was no fault of his that the South, crushed and bleeding, was sub- 
jected to the brutalities and vandalism of reconstruction. We know 
now that when he fell, the barrier that protected us from that reign 
of terror was swept away; we know that if he had lived we should 
have been spared the multiplied sorrows which were visited upon 
us. . . . In the Republic's oneness, the Americans of all sections 
shared in the heritage he bequeathed to the nation, and Americans of 
all sections honor and revere his memory." 

The South does not forget that Lincoln was a Southerner 
by birth, transplanted to the soil of the West. She takes 
pride in him as the son of the South. There is not throughout 
the South that deep affection for Lincoln which is every- 
where evidenced in the North; but there is a very real ap- 
preciation and a profound respect. Here and there dis- 
cordant notes and utterances are sounded in the Southern 
press, but their very rarity marks them as anachronisms of 



xxii ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

a bygone day, whicli have long since ceased to represent the 
true sentiments of this great section of our common country. 
Not only, then, has Lincoln come to be a truly national figure 
and to represent, in his hopes and ideals for America and 
American institutions, the North and South, the East and 
"West, alike, but wherever thoughtful men or hopeful men 
turn to American institutions as the hope of democracy, he 
stands forth as the heroic figure on the horizon of time. 

Abraham Lincoln holds this place to-day in the minds and 
hearts of all his countrymen and men of similar aspirations 
everywhere, not alone because of his public utterances, his 
keen insight into the problems of a democratic State, his 
emanei])ation of millions of slaves, his even-handed justice to 
friend and foe alike, or any one or all of the things that go 
to make up his public career, but also because of his per- 
sonality and life history. In his own day there were those 
who sneered because his training and manner were not con- 
ventional. These very facts, and the opposition which they 
caused, endeared him to the people as a whole, for they repre- 
sented their joys and sorrows, their aspirations and hopes, 
their ideals and beliefs, their struggles for self-expression in 
all the varied activities of life. 

It is sometimes commented upon as remarkable that a man 
like Lincoln should have risen from conditions such as marked 
his youth and early career. Americans then, and Americans 
now, have been among those who raise the question. It may 
be excusable for men brought up in other civilizations, to 
wonder at the possibility, but for an American to do so is 
to doubt his own institutions, and to question the power of 
democracy. It is out of such conditions, modified from decade 
to decade in accordance with the development of the country, 
away from the deadening level of the schools and the crush- 
ing conventionality of a settled society in our great cities, 
that we are most apt to draw our truly great men, 

Lincoln had a fine mind and a splendid physique, both 
developed to great perfection. He was a natural student, 
trained largely by his contact with men, but not neglecting 
every opportunity to master the books that he had at hand. 





The Lincoln Manip and Penny 




Tlie l.ineoln Medal Struck for the (Irand Army 
of the Piepu!)Hc 

(Sec iiat;c xxv) 



THE TRIBUTE OF A CENTURY xxiii 

He struggled for what he attained, but the result was a 
mastership of English style — two or three of his utterances 
rank with the finest in the world — a statesmanship as wide 
as the problem of the nation itself, a humanity as broad as 
the needs of men. 

The feeling about Lincoln being what it is, it is not sur- 
prising that, with the approach of the Centenary of his birth, 
the suitable celebration of it began to be agitated throughout 
the country — not alone by the people who knew him, or the 
thousands still living who had come in contact with him, 
hazarded property or life or loved ones to sustain him, or 
come to recognize him as their far-seeing friend in the time 
of stress and trouble — but even more by the millions who 
had been brought up under the inspiration of his memory 
and with reverence for his name. 

Centenary celebrations are not altogether unusual, but are 
generally of great national events. Never before did a whole 
people approach the centenary of the birth of a man with 
such interest and unanimity, or carry out its celebration with 
such enthusiasm. It was the spontaneous tribute of the na- 
tion to him who had justified its existence, given vitality to 
its utterances, preserved it for its destinies, and given promise 
of its future. 

It is hard to trace the origin of the Centenary celebration. 
Plans for it seemed to spring into existence simultaneously 
in various parts of the country : in the action of the Congress 
of the United States ; in the appointment of State commissions, 
by the Governors of all the States in the Union, to represent 
their States in the preparation for the national celebration at 
the Lincoln Farm ; and — to stimulate celebrations within their 
own States — in the organization of municipal celebrations; 
and the activities of various associations and patriotic so- 
cieties. 

The American Federation of Labor paid tribute to the day 
by the adoption, by its Executive Council, as part of its Report 
for the Denver Convention, the following recommendation, 
written by Samuel Gompers, President of the Federation : 



xxiv ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

"On Friday, the twelfth of February, 1909, will occur the one 
hundredth anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln. In all the 
history of our Kcpublic, no man lived who, in himself and in his work, 
more completely embodied and typified the ennobling aspirations and 
ideals of human justice and human freedom. No man ever loved his 
fellow men more than he. None had a better knowledge of, or a 
deeper sympathy with, the struggles and hopes of the toilers. 

"We were asked, and gladly gave, our support to a movement to make 
of his birthplace a perpetual Mecca of all who loved liberty and hu- 
manity. It is expected tliat a country-wide, fitting celebration be had 
upon the centennial anniversary of Lincoln's birth. The celebration is 
yet in indefinite form. 

"We reconmiend that Friday, February 12, 1909, the centennial 
of the birth of the revered and martyred Lincoln, wherever possible, be 
made a holiday by all labor. 

"That we urge upon Congress and the several States that that day be 
declared a legal holiday. 

"That the officers of the American Federation of Labor be authorized 
to be duly represented in any national celebration which may be in- 
augurated, or which they may initiate, so that the day, and the mem- 
ory of the advent and services of this great and good man, may be 
fittingly observed and impressed upon the hearts and consciences of 
our people." 

The Grand Army of the Republic issued, through its 
national Commander, a formal Proclamation to all its Posts, 
requesting "that every Post recognize the day in some fitting 
manner, either in special meeting, or in attendance, as a body, 
where a public celebration w-as held." The Proclamation also 
urged united observances of the day, where there was more 
than one Post in a city, and the invitation of other patriotic 
societies to participate in all functions arranged for this oc- 
casion. The organization, naturally, had a large part in the 
national commemoration of the Centenary, and its every Post, 
throughout the country, actively participated, often initiating 
the local celebrations, always taking part in them, and always 
the honored guests of the general committees where organized. 
In this celebration, they were joined many times by their 
brethren of the South, who wore the grey, and whose valor 
and sacrifices, although rendered to the Lost Cause, con- 
tribute so much to the glory of the Union to which Lincoln was 
martyr. 



THE TRIBUTE OF A CENTURY xxv 

Throughout the Centennial, the ]\Iason and Dixon line — 
long obliterated — was forgotten, and the singing of "Dixie" 
was received with enthusiasm in Northern church, and school, 
and meeting, while Lincoln was lauded in the South. A 
joint memorial service of this kind, typical of the spirit of 
the occasion, was arranged by the Union and Confederate 
veterans in Atlanta, Georgia. 

A movement which found its origin and inspiration in 
New York City, under the direction of the Lincoln Centennial 
Endowment Committee, was for the purpose of raising five 
hundred thousand dollars endoAvment for Lincoln I\Iemorial 
University. This committee had, as President, Frederick T. 
Martin, and as Secretary, Major-General Oliver Otis Howard, 
who gave much of his time to the promotion of this great 
enterprise, and made an effective campaign for subscriptions. 
It is desired to have a living memorial to Lincoln in this 
University for the people of the Blue Ridge and Cumberland 
Mountains. It is located on the slopes of the mountain at 
Cumberland Gap, with magnificent grounds, including fertile 
lowland fields and sloping pastures offering a field for work 
to the students and producing supplies for their use. 

The country at large was much interested in the general 
plans of Congress for a permanent memorial, and, although 
none of them have yet taken tangible form, it is hoped that 
before long some of these will be realized. Among the me- 
morials discussed, was a Lincoln road, or highway, from Wash- 
ington to Gettysburg, and a memorial building to be erected 
between the Capitol and the new Union Railway Station in 
Washington. The latter plan was strongly supported in 
Congress. The general plan of a memorial which is recom- 
mended by the American Institute of Architects, is in accord- 
ance with designs prepared under the direction of a com- 
mission consisting of Daniel H. Burnham, Charles F. Mc- 
Kim, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, and Frederick Law 01m- 
stead, Jr., which provide for a treatment of the Mall, from 
the base of the Capitol, past the Washington monument, to 
a memorial bridge, commemorating American valor, which 
shall lead directly across the Potomac to Arlington. Near 



xxvi ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

the end of this bridge, the commission proposed that a Lincoln 
memorial be erected, which should have a character dis- 
tinctively its own — one suggestion being that of a great 
portico of Doric columns. This plan had the support of 
President Roosevelt. 

The question of a permanent Lincoln museum was also 
discussed, and in order that the priceless collections of Lin- 
coln relics now in private hands may some time be brought 
together as the property of the government, it is hoped that 
such a plan may be realized. When that time comes, it is 
to be hoped that the great Gunther Lincoln collection, now 
stored in Chicago, may become thus once more available to 
the public, unless Chicago itself shall have sooner provided 
a suitable building for its preservation and display. 

In the meantime, while these plans for a great national 
memorial were being canvassed and discussed in and out of 
Congress, and through the press of the country — cities, towns, 
and villages all over the United States, colleges, universities, 
schools, churches, fraternal organizations, and private citi- 
zens were dedicating permanent memorials of their o^\•n, not 
so pretentious as the vast projects proposed in Congress, but 
equally commemorative of the Man they had thought so to 
honor, and perhaps even more vital in influence by reason of 
being set in the busy ways of town and market place, where 
the people go about their daily tasks. 

Hundreds of memorial tablets were placed on walls and 
buildings ; monuments were dedicated ; busts of Lincoln 
placed in public halls, schools, libraries, and other places of 
congregation ; new municipal parks named for Lincoln and 
thrown open to the public; while many of the sites where 
Lincoln once made history, were permanently marked, for 
the information of future generations, by tablets commemo- 
rating his connection with the events which had there taken 
place. 

The Grand Army of the Republic had struck off, at the 
United States i\Iint at Philadelphia, a Lincoln Centenary 
medal in bronze, as "an everlasting token of respect to the 
Commander in Chief of the Union Army and Navy of the 



THE TRIBUTE OF A CENTURY xxvii 

Civil War, and an heirloom to be handed down from genera- 
tion to generation as a tribute to the loyalty of those who 
served under his command." 

The government, in commemoration of the Centenary, issued 
a Memorial stamp and a Memorial penny. The postage stamp 
was a two-cent one, of the size and color of the regular two- 
cent stamp, and bore a profile of Lincoln, facing to the right, 
with the inscriptions: "U. S. Postage," and "1809— Feb. 12— 
1909," "Two Cents." The penny, on its obverse side, bears 
a profile relief of Lincoln facing the right, with the inscrip- 
tions: "In God we Trust," "Liberty," "1909," while on the 
reverse side are the words, ^'E Pluribus U^ium," "One Cent," 
* * United States of America. ' ' "When the distribution of these 
coins was made at the sub-treasuries, hundreds of people stood 
for hours in line for the opportimity of buying them, and 
soon they were sold at a premium on the street. 

The universal interest in the celebration of the Centenary 
is perhaps most clearly evidenced by the newspaper comment 
upon the life and services of Lincoln, and the celebrations 
of the week. The collection of clippings gathered for Chi- 
cago's Committee of One Himdred during the celebration, 
numbers over sixty thousand separate items, and fills 
more than thirty volumes the size of the "Encyclopedia 
Britanniea. " These clippings are an inexhaustible mine of 
anecdotes and reminiscences of Lincoln which could never 
again be duplicated. Many of them have been included, of 
course, in works already published, but others are new and 
of vital interest. Some day it is hoped that this new ma- 
terial may be made available for the lovers of Lincoln, through 
the historical societies or otherwise. The newspapers of the 
country printed Centennial editions, reviewing Lincoln's life, 
character, and the times which gave him birth; bringing into 
the least-lettered homes of the land intimate knowledge, not 
only of the sad, patient, kindly, wonderful man who held the 
nation intact, against all pressure from within and without, 
but of the conditions which confronted him — of the inner his- 
tory of the Civil War, and what preceded and came after. 

It has been my plan here to give a brief indication of the 



xxviii ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

marvellous interest expressed in the Centenary by the people 
of our country, and to preserve in permanent form some, at 
least, of the best addresses delivered on that occasion. It is 
hoped that the perusal of these addresses may kindle anew 
the already wide interest in the life and works of Abraham 
Lincoln, and, by showing the uniqueness of his place in the 
life of the nation, cause many who have never been so before, 
to become students of the life, words, character, and achieve- 
ments of the most typical of all Americans. The tribute of 
a century, paid to him within the lifetime of his contempo- 
raries, shows that Lincoln lives in the hearts of his country- 
men, immortal. 



THE CHICAGO COMMEMOEATION 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

THE TRIBUTE OF A CENTURY 



THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 

OF the hundreds of celebrations held throughout the land 
in commemoration of Lincoln's Centenary, the Chicago 
commemoration was one of the largest, most enthusiastic, and 
the broadest in conception of any in the country. The inti- 
mate relation of Chicago to the career of Lincoln made this 
commemoration one of national interest. 

The Chicago Commemoration was initiated by a Resolution 
introduced by Alderman Albert J. Fisher in the City Council, 
which provided for an official committee to be appointed by 
the Mayor, Acting upon this resolution, Honorable Fred A. 
Busse, Mayor of Chicago, appointed the Lincoln Centennial 
Memorial Committee of One Hundred, which organized with 
Honorable William J. Calhoun as Chairman, and Nathan 
William MacChesney as Secretary. The Committee was a 
thoroughly representative one, and great enthusiasm was shown 
for the work it was to undertake. It was divided into various 
sub-committees — a Committee on Speakers, Halls, and Schools, 
under the direction of Edgar A. Bancroft, Esq. ; a Committee 
on Military Participation, with Colonel Joseph Rosenbaum 
as Chairman ; a Committee on Music, Art, and Decorations, 
Alexander H. Revell, Chairman ; a Publicity Committee, with 
T. Edward Wilder and Joseph Baseh as Chairmen, and Shailer 
Mathews as Vice-Chairman ; a Committee on Church and In- 
stitutional Observance, Hon. C. C. Kohlsaat, Chairman; a 
Finance Committee, Arthur Meeker, Chairman ; and a Com- 
mittee on Conference and LTnification of Celebration, with 
Frank Hamlin, Esq., as Chairman. 

3 



4 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

These, together with the other committees, mapped out a 
comprehensive plan for the celebration. Eesoliitions were 
passed by the Board of Cook County Coimiiissioners, and a 
Proclamation was issued by the Mayor and posted throughout 
the city, calling attention to the Lincoln celebration, and urg- 
ing upon the people a study of the life and words of Lincoln. 

The plans of the Committee of One Hundred provided for 
an entire Lincoln week to be given to the commemoration of 
the Centenary, starting with exercises in the churches of the 
city on Sunday evening, February 7, and continuing through- 
out the week; with readings from the life and speeches of 
Lincoln in the schools of the city for three or four days pre- 
ceding Friday, February 12, and with public exercises in the 
class-rooms of all the public and parochial schools on Thurs- 
day, February 11. The celebration was planned to be educa- 
tional in its scope, and included meetings not only in all of the 
public, parochial, and private schools of the city, but in other 
educational institutions, and in public and private libraries. 
Speakers were furnished for these meetings under the direc- 
tion of the general Committee ; and the fraternal organiza- 
tions, and various societies and clubs of the city, were stimu- 
lated to hold meetings of their own, with the result that there 
were held during the week considerably over a thousand meet- 
ings with which the Committee came in touch. A more re- 
markable example of the interest taken could not have been 
given. 

The five largest meetings of the day — at the Auditorium, 
on the morning of the Centenary; at the Seventh Regiment 
Armory, on the afternoon and evening; at the Second Regi- 
ment Armory and at Battery B Armory, in the aftenioon — 
were held directly under tlie auspices of the Committee of One 
Hundred, and were presided over by the Committee through 
its designated representatives. 

Woodrow Wilson, President of Princeton University, spoke 
at the Auditorium meeting, in the forenoon of February 12 — 
a meeting which was remarkable in many respects, and pre- 
sided over by Hon. William J. Calhoun, Chairman of the Com- 
mittee of One Hundred, who made, of course, the speech of 



THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 5 

introduction. The hall itself has been the scene of many great 
addresses, and many interesting civic events, in Chicago, start- 
ing with the nomination of President Harrison in 1888. It 
seats about forty-five hundred people, but the application for 
seats exceeded the capacity some two or three times. Sec- 
tions were reserved for the City Council, the County Com- 
missioners, the Grand Army of the Republic, the Women's 
Relief Corps, the various patriotic societies, the Consular Corps 
of Chicago, and the Committee of One Hundred, which at- 
tended in a body. The boxes were occupied by the various 
officers of the Army and Navy, and of the Illinois National 
Guard ; and by representatives of the Legislature, the Su- 
preme Court, and the Executive branch of the Government. 
The setting was perfect for a great meeting, and the speaker 
rose to the occasion, carrying his audience with him in waves 
of enthusiasm. When Chairman Calhoun requested that the 
veterans of the Grand Army of the Republic be allowed to 
march out prior to the dismissal of the meeting — which they 
did, carrying their banners and flags, and dipping their colors 
as they passed in review before General Grant, the son of 
their old commander — there was scarcely a dry eye in the 
house. 

At the meeting in the Seventh Regiment Armory, on the 
afternoon of February 12, over three thousand people lis- 
tened to the inspiring speech of Hon. J. A. Macdonald, editor 
of The Toronto Glohe, receiving its masterly periods with 
rounds of applause. The meeting was appropriately pre- 
sided over, and the speech of introduction made, by Hon. 
Frank Hamlin, a son of Hannibal Hamlin, Vice-President 
under Lincoln. 

No less enthusiastic was the appreciation accorded Edwin 
Erie Sparks, President of the Pennsylvania State College, 
who spoke on the afternoon of the twelfth, in Battery B 
Armory, under the auspices of the First Cavalry and Bat- 
tery B, Illinois National Guard. Hon. Charles H. Wacker 
was Chairman of the meeting, and introduced the speaker. 
President Sparks was formerly Professor of American His- 
tory in the University of Chicago, and has edited an edition 



6 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

of "The Lincoln-Douglas Debates" for the Illinois Historical 
Society. 

Dr. Emil G. Ilirsch, Minister of Sinai Congregation, 
Chicago, and Professor of Rabbinical Literature and Philos- 
ophy at the University of Chicago, gave an eloquent address 
to an overflowing and appreciative audience at the Second 
Regiment Armory, under the auspices of the Second Infantry, 
Illinois National Guard. He was introduced by Hon. Stephen 
S. Gregory, who acted as Chairman. 

Perhaps the most remarkable meeting of the week was that 
held for the colored people on the evening of the twelfth, in 
the Seventh Regiment Armory under the auspices of the 
Eighth Infantry (colored), Illinois National Guard, and the 
Colored Citizens' Committee. Ten or twelve thousand col- 
ored people gathered there to celebrate the one hundredth 
anniversary of the birth of their emancipator. Although the 
meeting was set for eight o'clock, the people began to arrive 
in the afternoon, and, long before the hour set, the crowds 
were massed in the street. Colonel John R. Marshall, of the 
Eighth Infantry, made a short speech as Chairman pro tern., 
followed by Rev. A. J. Carey, who made the speech of intro- 
duction. The three other speakers at this meeting were the 
Rev. J. W. E. Bowen, President of Gammon Theological 
Seminary, Atlanta, Georgia ; the Hon, William J. Calhoun, 
President of the Lincoln Memorial Committee of One Hun- 
dred, and now Ambassador to China; and Nathan William 
MacChesney, Secretary of the Lincoln Memorial Committee, 
present to extend the greetings of the City of Chicago to its 
colored citizens. The meeting was a most unusual one, and 
perhaps nowhere in the limits of the city was the Lincoln 
Centenary observed with such feeling, such enthusiasm, such 
exaltation and homage. 

In addition to this meeting, there were hundreds of others 
throughout the city, of vivid interest and far-reaching influ- 
ence. 

Dr. Charles J. Little, President of Garrett Biblical Insti- 
tute, spoke at the Northwestern University Building, which 
stands upon the site of the old Tremont House. From the 




////YfOJ (fV/rr/' 






IN THE NAME OF THE CITY OF CHICAGO 
A PROCLAMATION. 
WHEREAS, February 12, 1909, Is the One Hundredth Anniversary 
of the birth of ABRAHMI LINCOIIJT; and 

WH]-',Ri:AS, There is a universal desire that on that day his 
memory should be }ionorod by the nation which he helped preserve, and 
especially by t^iat State in which he lived, 

HOW THEREFORE, I, Fred A. Basse, Mayor ol' the City of Chicago, 
by virtue of a resolution passed by the Honorable, the Citj' Council of 
Chlcdgo , do hereby proclaim the week February 7-14, 1909, the 
LIMCOUI CENTENNIAL WEEK, 

In order that this anniversary shall be appropriately observed, 
I do most earnestly ui'ge the citizens of Chicago to dedicate that week 
to the study of the life ^nd words of President Lincoln. 

In particular do I call upon t)ie citizens of Ciiicago to assemble 
on February l^th in such places as shall be designated, to celebrate 
Lincoln's ch^aracter, sacrifice and service to the Republic, to the end 
that a deepened sense ol his loyalty to the Constitution, of his faith 
in the principles of democracy, and of his devotion to moral ideals 



tfhall inspire anew our own civic life, 



TAiJu /^'^'-'^ 



MAYOR. 



Facsimile of :\Layor Bussc's l^nnMainnt ion 



THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION % 

balcony of this old hotel, Lincoln delivered his first reply to 
Douglas; and it was here that the Lincoln delegation had its 
headquarters, and did the tireless planning which resulted in 
his nomination. It was here, too, that Vice-President Hamlin 
first met Lincoln, on November twenty-third, 1860, in response 
to a letter from him, after their election. In the Northwestern 
University Law School, located in this building, the General 
Committee held most of its meetings. 

The President of the Chicago Public Library Board, Bernard 
J. Cigrand, spoke at a meeting held at I\Iemorial Hall, Chicago 
Public Library Building. It was through his untiring efforts 
as a member of the general Committee, that meetings were 
held in practically every public and private library of Chicago. 

In addition to these meetings, the Illinois Naval Reserves 
marched through the streets to Lincoln Park, where the statue 
of Lincoln by Saint-Gaudens is located ; and, at twelve o 'clock, 
noon, a presidential salute of twenty-one guns was fired, in 
the presence of a great throng of school children, who sang 
patriotic songs. 

No banquet was included in the programme of the general 
Committee, but many dinners were given in honor of the 
Centenary. The leading one, on the Centennial day itself, was 
that under the auspices of the Industrial Club in the "gold 
room" of the Congress Hotel. Mason B. Starring, President 
of the Club, acted as toastmaster. Among those who re- 
sponded to toasts with brief speeches in honor of Lincoln, were 
Maj.-Gen. Frederick Dent Grant, U. S. A., son of Gen. 
Ulysses S. Grant, who carried out, in the field, the policies 
Lincoln planned in the White House, proving the strongest 
bulwark of the administration ; and Gen. Smith D. Atkins, the 
editor of The Freeport Daily Journal, and a contemporary 
and personal acquaintance of Lincoln. 

The Chicago Bar Association gave a banquet in honor of 
the Centenary, on the preceding evening, at which there were 
a number of speakers who gave personal reminiscences of 
Lincoln. Three of the important speeches of the evening were 
delivered by Hon. John C. Richberg, John T. Richards, Esq., 
and Hon. William G. Ewing, fellow-members of the Illinois 



8 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

bar. The speeches given are included in this volume because 
it is believed they give interesting material on a side of Lin- 
coln which has only recently come to be appreciated. It should 
not be forgotten, either, that if the ideals of Lincoln are to be 
preserved for our children, they v^^ill only be continued through 
the thought and vision of the American bar of to-day. 

At a luncheon of The Irish Fellowship Club during Lincoln 
week, an impressive speech was delivered by Judge Peter Sten- 
ger Grosscup, of the United States Circuit Court of Appeals. 
The statue of Lincoln by Saint-Gaudens, to which Judge Gross- 
cup refers, is a sitting figure, and has been procured by the 
Crerar Fund Trustees, of whom Judge Grosscup is one, to be 
placed in Grant Park, Chicago. 

The Abraham Lincoln Center, a community house, held a 
celebration, lasting throughout the week, under the direction 
of Rev. Jenkin Lloyd Jones. Here was exhibited the famous 
Fay collection of pictures of Lincoln, nimibering more than 
one thousand portraits. 

One of the most unique meetings of the week was that held 
on the evening of the Centenary at Dexter Park Pavilion, 
with Arthur Meeker as Chairman, to whose unstinted efforts 
and able generalship is due the unusual interest it created. 
It was a great patriotic song meeting, with a chorus of a thou- 
sand voices, and orchestra, leading the great audience in the 
singing of the patriotic songs of the country. One of the 
features of the evening was an illustrated lecture by Rev. 
Jenkin Lloyd Jones. More than fifteen thousand people 
crowded into the building to hear and join in the exercises, and 
as many more were turned away from the doors, the building 
being packed to suffocation. 

At the Chicago Historical Society, on Friday evening, Feb- 
ruary 12, Col. Clark E. Carr, of Galesburg, Illinois, delegate 
to the Dedication of the National Cemetery at Gettysburg, in 
1863, delivered an address on "Lincoln at Gettysburg"; while 
during the entire Centenary week, the Society exhibited a spe- 
cial collection of Lincolniana, consisting of original manu- 
scripts, portraits, and relics, which the public was cordially 
invited to view. 



THE CHICAGO COMMJiMORATION 9 

Countless other meetings were held during Centenary week, 
Tinder the auspices of similar societies, of fraternal organiza- 
tions, and through private initiative ; and of the many meet- 
ings thus held in the city during Lincoln week, more than one 
thousand were the outgrowth of the work of the Committee of 
One Hundred. 

Ceremonies in the Jewish churches of the city were held on 
Saturday morning, February 13, and at the various residential 
clubs in the evening. The week's celebration closed on Sim- 
day, February 14, with the churches of the city, of all de- 
nominations, devoting the morning services to ceremonies and 
sermons commemorative of the life of Lincoln. 

The Committee secured a very general interest in the decora- 
tion of the city ; the streets, every public building, and all of 
the important private buildings were appropriately and beau- 
tifully decorated. Of the nearly forty thousand business 
houses in Chicago having show windows for display, it is safe 
to say that few, if any, were without some tokens of the sig- 
nificance of the week. The Proclamation issued by the Mayor 
was posted everywhere, on the streets, in the show windows, 
and in the street cars; and for three weeks previous, the 
programmes of all the playhouses of the city had cuts of Lin- 
coln, with announcements of the impending celebration. Post- 
ers, too, were used in all of the surface, elevated, and suburban 
trains of the city. These had a picture of the Saint-Gaudens 
statue of Lincoln, and carried announcements of the celebra- 
tion, with the location of the various meetings. 

Beautiful bronze tablets were prepared by the Committee, 
containing the Gettysburg Address, which were placed on the 
walls of the two hundred and sixty-seven public schools, and 
one hundred and eighty-four parochial schools of the city, that 
the four hundred thousand school children of Chicago, and 
their successors through the coming years, might have ever be- 
fore them the words of the greatest of American utterances. 
These tablets were presented, also, to numerous other private 
and public educational institutions, on the Centennial Day; 
while memorial tablets were placed on the site of the Wigwam 
where Lincoln was nominated, and on the Tremont House, 



10 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

where Lincoln gave his first speech in reply to Douglas — a 
speech which led to the famous Lincoln-Douglas Debates — and 
where Judge Douglas afterward died. 

Thousands of co])ies of a very interesting and instructive 
pamphlet on the "One Hundredth Anniversary of Lincoln," 
were distributed throughout the city and the State, by the Hon. 
Francis G. Blair, the Superintendent of Public Instruction of 
Illinois; the book stores and libraries had on special exhibit 
books and pictures relating to Lincoln and his time ; the Chi- 
cago Public Library, upon the suggestion of the Lincoln Com- 
mittee, prepared, and issued to the public a "Lincoln Bibliog- 
raphy," with a very complete classification of all published 
works relating to the different periods of Lincoln's life. This 
was widely distributed, and proved of great interest and value 
in connection with the plans of the general Committee. The 
compilation of the Bibliography was the work of ]\Ir. Charles 
A. Larson. 

The editors of all the foreign papers of the city took an 
active interest in the celebration. The Gettysburg Speech, 
and the Mayor's Proclamation were translated into the va- 
rious foreign languages, printed in foreign papers published 
in the city, and posted in the foreign quarters, in order that 
the life and work of Lincoln might be brought home to every 
man, woman, and child in the community, whether they read 
the English language or not. 

Chicago remembered with pride that it was within her 
boundaries that Lincoln received his nomination for the Pres- 
idency; and her celebration, starting on Sunday with exer- 
cises in the churches of every denomination, lasted throughout 
the week with a sustained interest that the most experienced 
observer of public celebrations would have in advance declared 
utterly impossible. The city in which Lincoln was nominated 
and in which he spent much of his time, showed by every evi- 
dence, that it thoroughly appreciated the honor which had been 
conferred upon it by that association. 



THE UNITY OF THE NATION 

(A Speech of Introduction) 

HON. WILLIAM J. CALHOUN 

THE progress of nations towards a more perfect civiliza- 
tion is often attended with great social convulsions, with 
revolutions, and wars. It is in such times, when the need 
of the people is the sorest, when their cry for leadership is 
the loudest, that the great man appears. From obscurity he 
sometimes comes, and to the wondering eyes of men seems 
divinely commissioned for the needs of the hour and for the 
work he has to do. 

Such a time in the history of this country was the Civil 
War, and such a man was Abraham Lincoln, The time was 
one of great excitement and of intense passion. The air re- 
sounded with the clamor of angry voices, with the tramp of 
armed men, and with the thunder of the great guns of war, 

Lincoln, when called to the head of the Nation, was 
comparatively unknown and inexperienced. Many doubted 
his capacity for the emergency, and questioned the wisdom 
of his policies, but he continued to be the central figure of 
that great struggle. Around him men, strong men, fought 
and died, while women and children wept. Through it all, 
he was masterful in control, resolute and inflexible in pur- 
pose. But his resolution was always tempered with patience, 
with moderation, and with pity. 

I lived in that time; I was but a boy, and vaguely under- 
stood the things I saw and heard, but I remember well the 
angry passion of the hour, the abuse and the epithets that 
were heaped upon him. But just as the bugles were blowing 
the sweet notes of victory, just as the sunshine of peace was 
breaking through the clouds of war, he too fell dead — the 
War's last and most precious victim. It was then the Amer- 
ican people, North and South, seemed to awake to the realiza- 

11 



12 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

tion that a great and good man had fallen. A wave of 
sympathy and love swept over the land, and removed every 
trace of bitterness. Friends and former foes alike crowded 
around his grave and covered it with laurels of fame and 
with flowers of praise. 

The War bore heavily upon him. Its responsibilities were 
great. His rugged cheeks were furrowed with care. His 
heart was wrenched with the misery, the suffering, and the 
pity of it. But all through that dark and desperate night, 
his greatest hope, his greatest aspiration was to save the 
Union ; for it he prayed and labored and suffered. Regard- 
less of every cost and every sacrifice, his hope, his trust, his 
faith, was in and for the Union. 

I do not know whether the immortals look down upon 
the earth and remember us as we remember them. I do not 
know whether Abraham Lincoln takes note of what is said 
and done here to-day. If he does, the fact that the Union 
which he loved is safe ; that the warring sections which threat- 
ened its perpetuity are now closer together in personal re- 
lations, in common sympathies, and in purpose, than ever 
before, must gratify him. 

The War is long since over. Its battle flags, blood-stained 
and tear-stained, have been furled and laid away, never again 
to wave in the battle front. Its forts are dismantled and 
levelled. Its guns and swords have turned to rust. Its dead 
quietly sleep in grass-covered graves. But the blessing of 
a profound peace rests upon the Republic. The prayer of 
Abraham Lincoln has been answered ; the Union is saved. 
If I may be allowed the figure of speech, the North and the 
South now stand, as it were, side by side, with clasped hands, 
the heart of each full of sacred memories of the past, of 
courageous endeavor and heroic sacrifice. But their backs 
are turned upon the past ; their uplifted faces are turned 
to the future, illuminated with a love of country that knows 
no North and no South, no East and no West. Their as- 
pirations for the future are the same. Their common pur- 
pose is, that the American people shall meet the emergencies 
of the future with the same high resolve that distinguished 



THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 13 

their past. And their common hope is, that this Union shall 
be maintained as a demonstration of the pennanency of de- 
mocracy ; that its influence shall be for the betterment of the 
life of the world, for the uplift of humanity, and for the 
advancement of civilization. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN: A MAN OF THE PEOPLE 

PRESIDENT WOODROW WILSON 

MY earliest recollection is of standing at my father's 
gateway in Augusta, Georgia, when I was four years 
old, and hearing some one pass and say that Mr. Lincoln 
was elected and there was to be war. Catching the intense 
tones of his excited voice, I remember running in to ask my 
father what it meant. What it meant, you need not be told. 
What it meant, we shall not here to-day dwell upon. We shall 
rather turn away from those scenes of struggle and of un- 
happy fraternal strife, and recall w^hat has happened since to 
restore our balance, to remind us of the permanent issues of 
history, to make us single-hearted in our love of America, 
and united in our purpose for her advancement. We are met 
here to-day to recall the character and achievements of a 
man who did not stand for strife, but for peace, and whose 
glory it was to win the affection alike of those whom he led 
and of those whom he opposed, as indeed a man and a king 
among those who mean the right. 

It is not necessary that I should rehearse for you the life 
of Abraham Lincoln. It has been written in every school 
book. It has been rehearsed in every family. It were to 
impeach your intelligence if I were to tell you the story of his 
life. I would rather attempt to expound for you the meaning 
of his life, the significance of his singular and unique career. 

It is a very long century that separates us from the year 
of his birth. The nineteenth century was crowded wath many 
significant events, — it seems to us in America as if it were 
more crowded with significant events for us than for any 
other nation of the world, — and that far year 1809 stands 
very near its opening, when men were only beginning to un- 
derstand what was in store for them. It was a significant 

14 



THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 15 

century, not only in the field of politics but in the field of 
thought. Do you realize that modern science is not older 
than the middle of the last century? Modern science came 
into the world to revolutionize our thinking and our material 
enterprises just about the time that Mr. Lincoln was uttering 
those remarkable debates with Mr. Douglas. The struggle 
which determined the life of the Union came just at the time 
when a new issue was joined in the field of thought, and men 
began to reconstruct their conceptions of the universe and of 
their relation to nature, and even of their relation to God. 
There is, I believe, no more significant century in the his- 
tory of man than the nineteenth century, and its whole sweep 
is behind us. 

That year 1809 produced, as you know, a whole group of 
men who were to give distinction to its annals in many fields 
of thought and of endeavor. To mention only some of the 
great men who were born in 1809 : the poet Tennyson was 
born in that year, our own poet Edgar Allan Poe, the great 
Sherman, the great Mendelssohn, Chopin, Charles Darwin, 
William E. Gladstone, and Abraham Lincoln. Merely read 
that list and you are aware of the singular variety of gifts 
and purposes represented. Tennyson was, to my thinking,, 
something more than a poet. We are apt to be so beguiled 
by the music of his verse as to suppose that its charm and 
power lie in its music ; but there is something about the poet 
which makes him the best interpreter, not only of life, but of 
national purpose, and there is to be found in Tennyson a 
great body of interpretation which utters the very voice 
of Anglo-Saxon liberty. That fine line in which he speaks 
of how English liberty has "broadened down from precedent 
to precedent" embodies the noble slowness, the very process 
and the very certainty, of the forces which made men po- 
litically free in the great century in which he wrote. He 
was a master who saw into the heart of affairs, as well as a 
great musician who seemed to give them the symphony of 
sound. 

And then there was our own Poe, that exquisite workman 
in the human language, that exquisite artisan in all the nice 



16 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

effects of speech, the man who dreamed all the odd dreams 
of the human imagination, and who quickened us with all 
the singular stories that the mind can invent, and did it 
all with the nicety and certainty of touch of the consummate 
artist. 

And then there were Chopin and Mendelssohn, whose music 
constantly rings in our ears and lifts our spirits to new 
sources of delight. And there was Charles Darwin, with 
an insight into nature next to Newton's owti; and Gladstone, 
who knew how to rule men by those subtle forces of oratory 
which shape the history of the world and determine the re- 
lations of nations to each other. 

And then our Lincoln. When you read that name you are 
at once aware of something that distinguishes it from all 
the rest. There was in each of those other men some special 
gift, but not in Lincoln. You cannot pick Lincoln out for 
any special characteristic. He did not have any one of those 
peculiar gifts that the other men on this list possessed. He 
does not seem to belong in a list at all; he seems to stand 
unique and singular and complete in himself. The name 
makes the same impression upon the ear that the name of 
Shakespeare makes, because it is as if he contained a world 
within himself. And that is the thing which marks the 
singular stature and nature of this great — and, we would 
fain believe, typical — American. Because when you try to 
describe the character of Lincoln you seem to be trying to 
describe a great process of nature. Lincoln seems to have 
been of general human use and not of particular and limited 
hiunan use. There was no point at which life touched him 
that he did not speak back to it instantly its meaning. There 
was no affair that touched him to which he did not give back 
life, as if he had communicated a spark of fire to kindle it. 
The man seemed to have, slumbering in him, powers which 
he did not exert of his o^\^l choice, but which woke the mo- 
ment they were challenged, and for which no challenge was 
too great or comprehensive. 

You know how slow, how almost sluggisli the development 
of the man was. You know how those who consorted with him 



THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 17 

in his youth noted the very thing of which I speak. They 
would have told you that Abraham Lincoln was good for 
nothing in particular; and the singular fact is he was good 
for nothing in particular — he was good for everything in 
general. He did not narrow and concentrate his power, be- 
cause it was meant to be diffused as the sun itself. And so 
he went through his youth like a man who has nothing to do, 
like a man whose mind is never halted at any point where 
it becomes serious, to seize upon the particular endeavor or 
occupation for which it is intended. He went from one sort 
of partial success to another sort of partial success, or, as 
his contemporaries would have said, from failure to failure, 
until — not until he found himself, but until, so to say, af- 
fairs found him, and the crisis of a country seemed suddenly 
to match the universal gift of his nature ; until a great nature 
was summed up, not in any particular business or activity, 
but in the affairs of a whole country. It was characteristic 
of the man. 

Have you ever looked at some of those singular statues of 
the great French sculptor Kodin — those pieces of marble in 
which only some part of a figure is revealed and the rest is 
left in the hidden lines of the marble itself; where there 
emerges the arm and the bust and the eager face, it may be, 
of a man, but his body disappears in the general bulk of the 
stone, and the lines fall off vaguely? I have often been 
made to think, in looking at those statues, of Abraham Lincoln. 
There was a little disclosed in him, but not all. You feel 
that he was so far from being exhausted by the demands of 
his life that more remained unrevealed than was disclosed 
to our view. The lines run off into infinity and lead the 
imagination into every great conjecture.- We wonder what 
the man might have done, what he might have been, and we 
feel that there was more promise in him when he died than 
when he was born ; that the force was so far from being ex- 
hausted that it had only begun to display itself in its splendor 
and perfection. No man can think of the life of Lincoln 
without feeling that the man was cut off almost at his be- 
ginning. 



18 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

And vso it is with every genius of this kind, not singular 
but universal, because there were uses to which it was not 
challenged. You feel that there is no telling what it might 
have done in days to come, when there would have been ne\T 
demands made upon its strength and upon its versatility. He 
is like some great reservoir of living water which you can 
freely quaff but can never exhaust. There is something ab- 
solutel}' endless about the lines of such a life. 

And you will see that that very fact renders it difficult 
indeed to point out the characteristics of a man like Lin- 
coln. How shall you describe general human nature brought 
to its finest development? — for such was this man. We say 
that he was honest; men used to call him "Honest Abe." 
But honesty is not a quality. Honesty is the manifestation 
of character. Lincoln was honest because there was nothing 
small or petty about him, and only smallness and pettiness 
in a nature can produce dishonesty. Such honesty is a qual- 
ity of largeness. It is that openness of nature which will 
not condescend to subterfuge, which is too big to conceal 
itself. Little men run to cover and deceive you. Big men 
cannot and will not run to cover, and do not deceive you. 
Of course, Lincoln was honest. But that was not a peculiar 
characteristic of him ; that is a general description of him. 
He was not small or mean, and his honesty was not produced 
by any calculation, but was the genial expression of the great 
nature that was behind it. 

Then we also say of Lincoln that he saw things with his 
own eyes. And it is very interesting that we can pick out 
individual men to say that of them. The opposite of the 
proposition is, that most men see things with other men's 
eyes. And that is the pity of the whole business of the world. 
Most men do not see things with their own eyes. If they 
did they would not be so inconspicuous as they consent to be. 
What most persons do is to live up to formulas and opinions 
and believe them, and never give themselves the trouble 
to ask whether they are true or not; so that there is a great 
deal of truth in saying that the trouble is, that men believe 
so many things that are not so, because they have taken them 



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THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 19 

at second hand; they have accepted them in the form they 
were given to them. They have not reexamined them. They 
have not seen the world with their own eyes. But Lincoln 
saw it with his own eyes. And he not only saw the surface 
of it, but saw beneath the surface of it ; for the characteristic 
of the seeing eye is that it is a discerning eye, seeing also 
that which is not caught by the surface; it penetrates to the 
heart of the subjects it looks upon. Not only did this man 
look upon life with a discerning eye. If you read of his 
youth and of his early manhood, it would seem that these 
were his only and sufficient pleasures. Lincoln seemed to 
covet nothing from his business except that it would give 
him leisure enough to do this very thing — to look at other 
people ; to talk about them ; to sit by the stove in the evening 
and discuss politics with them; to talk about all the things 
that were going on, to make shrewd, penetrating comments 
upon them, to speak his penetrating jests. 

I had a friend once who said he seriously thought that 
the business of life was conversation. There is a good deal 
of Mr. Lincoln 's early life which would indicate that he was of 
the same opinion. He believed that, at any rate, the most 
attractive business of life was conversation ; and conversation, 
with Lincoln, was an important part of the business of life, 
because it was conversation which uncovered the meanings of 
things and illuminated the hidden places where nobody but 
Lincoln had ever thought of looking. 

You remember the very interesting story told about Mr. Lin- 
coln in his early practice as a lawyer. Some business firm 
at a distance wrote to him and asked him to look into the 
credit of a certain man who had asked to have credit ex- 
tended to him by the firm. Mr. Lincoln went around to see 
the man at his place of business, and reported to this effect: 
that he had found the man in an office which contained one 
table and two chairs, "But," he added, "there is a hole in 
the corner that would bear looking into." That anecdote, 
slight as it is, is typical of Mr. Lincoln. He sometimes found 
the character of the man lurking in a hole ; and when his 
speech touched that character it was illuminated; you could 



20 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

not frame otherwise a better characterization. That seemed 
to be the business of the man's life; to look at things and 
to comment upon them; and his comment upon them was 
just as fearless and just as direct as it was shrewd and pene- 
trating. 

I know some men can see anything they choose to see, 
but they won't say anything; who are dried up at the source 
by that enemy of mankind which we call Caution. God save 
a free country from cautious men, — men, I mean, cautious for 
themselves, — for cautious men are men who will not speak the 
truth if the speaking of it threatens to damage them. Cau- 
tion is the confidential agent of selfishness. 

This man had no caution. He was absolutely direct and 
fearless. You will say that he had veiy little worldlj^ goods 
to lose. He did not allow himself to be encumbered by riches, 
therefore he could say what he pleased. You know that men 
who are encumbered by riches are apt to be more silent than 
others. They have given hostages to fortune, and for them it 
is very necessary to maintain the status quo. Now, Mr. Lincoln 
was not embarrassed in this way. A change of circumstances 
would suit him just as well as the permanency of existing 
circumstances. But I am confident that if Mr. Lincoln had 
had the gift of making money, he nevertheless would not have 
restrained his gift for saying things; that he nevertheless 
would have ignored the trammels and despised caution and 
said what he thought. But one interesting thing about Mr. 
Lincoln is that no matter how shrewd or penetrating his com- 
ment, he never seemed to allow a matter to grip him. He 
seemed so directly in contact with it that he could define 
things other men could not define; and yet he was detached. 
He did not look upon it as if he were part of it. And he 
was constantly salting all the delightful things that he said, 
with the salt of wit and humor. 

I would not trust a saturnine man, but I would trust a wit; 
because a wit is a man who can detach himself, and not 
get so buried in the matter he is dealing with a.s to lose that 
sure and free movement which a man can have only when he is 
detached. If a man can comment upon his own misfortunes 



THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 21 

with a touch of humor, you know that his misfortunes are 
not going to subdue or kill him. You should try to instill 
into every distressed friend the inclination to hold himself 
off at arm's length, and should assure him that, after all, 
there have been worse eases on record. Mr. Lincoln was not 
under the impression that his own misfortunes were unique, 
and he was not under the impression that the misfortunes of 
his fellow-men were unique or unalterable. Therefore he 
was detached; therefore he was a wit; therefore he told 
you a story to show that he was not so intense upon a matter 
that he could not recognize the funny side of it. 

Not only that, but Lincoln was a singularly studious man 
— not studious in the ordinary conventional sense. To be 
studious in the ordinary, conventional sense, if I may judge 
by my observation at a university, is to do the things you 
have to do and not understand them particularly. But to 
be studious, in the sense in which Mr. Lincoln was studious, is 
to follow eagerly and fearlessly the curiosity of a mind which 
will not be satisfied unless it understands. That is a deep 
studiousness ; that is the thing which lays bare the map of 
life and enables men to understand the circumstances in which 
they live, as nothing else can do. 

And what commends Mr. Lincoln's studiousness to me is 
that the result of it was he did not have any theories at all. 
Life is a very complex thing. No theory that I ever heard pro- 
pounded will match its varied pattern; and the men who 
are dangerous are the men who are not content with under- 
standing, but go on to propound theories, things which will 
make a new pattern for society and a new model for the 
universe. Those are the men who are not to be trusted. 
Because, although you steer by the North Star, when you 
have lost the bearings of your compass, you nevertheless 
must steer in a pathway on the sea, — you are not bound for 
the North Star. The man who insists upon his theory insists 
that there is a way to the North Star, and I know, and every 
one knows, that there is not — at least none yet discovered. 
Lincoln was one of those delightful students who do not seek 
to tie you up in the meshes of any theory. 



22 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Such was Mr. Lincoln, — not a singular man ; a very normal 
man, but normal in gigantic proportions, — the whole charac- 
ter of him is ou as great a scale — and ^'et so delightfully in- 
formal in the way it was put together — as, was the great 
frame in which he lived. That great, loose-jointed, angular 
frame that Mr. Lincoln inhabited was a very fine symbol of 
the big, loose-jointed, genial, angular nature that was inside ; 
angular, not in the sense of having sharp corners upon which 
men might wound themselves, but angular as nature is an- 
gular. Nature is not symmetrical like the Renaissance archi- 
tecture. Nature is an architect who does not, in the least, 
mind putting a very different thing on one side from what it 
has put on the other. Your average architect wants to 
balance his windows; to have consistency and balance in the 
parts. But nature is not interested in that. Nature does 
what it pleases, and so did the nature of Lincoln. It did 
what it pleased, and was no more conventionalized and sym- 
metrical than the body of the man himself. 

Mr. Lincoln belonged to a type which is fast disappearing, 
the type of the frontiersman. And he belonged to a process 
which has almost disappeared from this country. Mr. Lincoln 
seemed slow in his development, but when you think of the 
really short span of his life and the distance he traversed in 
the process of maturing, you will see that it can not be said 
to have been a slow process. Mr. Lincoln was bred in that 
part of the country — this part, though we can hardly conceive 
it now — where States were made as fast as men. Lincoln was 
made along with the States that were growing as fast as 
men were. States were born and came to their maturity, in 
that day, within the legal limit of twenty-one years, and the 
very pressure of that rapid change, the very imperious ne- 
cessity of that quick process of maturing, was what made 
and moulded men with a speed and in a sort which have 
never since been matched. Here were the processes of civ- 
ilization and of the building up of polities crowded into a 
single generation ; and where such processes are crowded, 
men grow. Men could be picked out in the crude, and, if 
put in that crucible, could be refined out in a single genera- 



THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 23 

tion into pure metal. That was the process which made Mr. 
Lincoln. We could not do it that way again, because that 
period has passed forever with us. 

Mr. Lincoln could not have been born at any other time and 
he could not have been made in any other way. I took the 
liberty of saying in New York the other day that it was incon- 
ceivable that Mr. Lincoln could have been born in New York. 
I did not intend thereby any disparagement of New York, 
but simply to point the moral that he could not have been 
born in a finished community. He had to be produced in a 
community that was on the make, in the making. New 
York is on the make, but it is not in the making. 

Mr. Lincoln, in other words, was produced by processes 
which no longer exist anywhere in America, and therefore we 
are solemnized by this question : Can we have other Lincolns ? 
We cannot do without them. This country is going to have 
crisis after crisis. God send they may not be bloody crises, 
but they will be intense and acute. No body politic so 
abounding in life and so puzzled by problems as ours is can 
avoid moving from crisis to crisis. We must have the leader- 
ship of sane, genial men of universal use like Lincoln, to 
save us from mistakes and give us the necessary leadership 
in such days of struggle and of difficulty. And yet, such 
men will hereafter have to be produced among us by pro- 
cesses which are not characteristically American, but which 
belong to the whole world. 

There was something essentially native, American, about 
Lincoln ; and there will, no doubt, be something American 
about every man produced by the processes of America ; but 
no such distinguished process as the process, unique and 
separate, of that early age can be repeated for us. 

It seems to me serviceable, therefore, to ask ourselves what 
it is that we must reproduce in order not to lose the breed, 
the splendid breed, of men of this calibre. Mr. Lincoln we 
describe as "a man of the people," and he was a man of 
the people, essentially. But what do we mean by a "man of 
the people"? We mean a man, of course, who has his root- 
age deep in the experiences and the consciousness of the 



24 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

ordinary mass of his fellow-men ; but we do not mean a man 
whose rootage is holding him at their level. We mean a man 
who, drawing his sap from such sources, has, nevertheless, 
risen above the level of the rest of mankind and has got an 
outlook over their heads, seeing horizons which they are too 
submerged to see; a man who finds and draws his inspira- 
tion from the common plane, but nevertheless has lifted him- 
self to a new place of outlook and of insight; who has come 
out from the people and is their leader, not because he speaks 
from their ranks, but because he speaks for them and for 
their interests. 

Browning has said : 

"A nation is but the attempt of many 
To rise to the completer life of one; 
And they who live as models for the mass 
Are singly of more value than they all." 

Lincoln was of the mass, but he was so lifted and big 
that all men could look upon him, until he became the 
"model for the mass" and was "singly of more value than 
they all." 

It was in that sense that Lincoln was "a man of the peo- 
ple." His sources were where all the pure springs are, but 
his streams flowed down into other country and fertilized 
other plains, where men had become sophisticated with the 
life of an older age. 

A great nation is not led by a man who simply repeats 
the talk of the street-corners or the opinions of the news- 
papers. A nation is led by a man who hears more than 
those things; or who, rather, hearing those things, under- 
stands them better, unites them, puts them into a common 
meaning; speaks, not the rumors of the street, but a new 
principle for a new age; a man in whose ears the voices 
of the nation do not sound like the accidental and discordant 
notes that come from the voice of a mob, but concurrent 
and concordant like the united voices of a chorus, whose 
many meanings, spoken by melodious tongues, unite in his 
understanding in a single meaning and reveal to him a 



THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 25 

single vision, so that he can speak what no man else knows, 
the common meaning of the common voice. Such is the man 
who leads a great, free, democratic nation. 

We must always be led by "men of the people," and there- 
fore it behooves us to know them when we see them. How 
shall we distinguish them? Judged by this man, interpreted 
by this life, what is a **man of the people"? How shall we 
know him when he emerges to our view? 

Well, in the first place, it seems to me that a man of the 
people is a man who sees affairs as the people see them, and 
not as a man of particular classes or the professions sees 
them. You cannot afford to take the advice of a man who 
has been too long submerged in a particular profession, — not 
because you cannot trust him to be honest and candid, but 
because he has been too long immersed and submerged, and 
through the inevitable pressure and circumstances of his life 
has come to look upon the nation from a particular point 
of view. The man of the people is a man who looks far 
and wide upon the nation, and is not limited by a profes- 
sional point of view. That may be a hard doctrine; it may 
exclude some gentlemen ambitious to lead; but I am not 
trying to exclude them by any arbitrary dictum of my own; 
I am trying to interpret so much as I understand of human 
history, and if human history has excluded them, you cannot 
blame me. Human history has excluded them, as far as I 
understand it, and that is the end of the matter. I am not 
excluding them. In communities like ours, governed by gen- 
eral opinion and not led by classes, not dictated to by special 
interests, they are of necessity excluded. You will see that 
it follows that a man of the people is not subdued by any 
stuff of life that he has happened to work in ; that he is free 
to move in any direction his spirit prompts. Are you not 
glad that Mr. Lincoln did not succeed too deeply in any par- 
ticular calling; that he was sufficiently detached to be lifted 
to a place of leadership and to be used by the whole country ? 
Are you not glad that he had not narrowed his view and 
understanding to any particular interest, — did not think in 
the terms of interest but in the terms of life? Are you not 



26 ABRAHAxM LINCOLN 

glad that he had a myriad of contacts with the growing and 
vehement life of this country, and that, because of that mul- 
tiple contact, he was, more than any one else of his genera- 
tion, the spokesman of the general opinion of this country? 

Why was it that Mr. Lincoln was wiser than the professional 
politicians? Because the professional politicians had bur- 
rowed into particular burrows and Mr. Lincoln walked on the 
surface and saw his fellow-men. 

Why could Mr. Lincoln smile at lawyers and turn away 
from ministers ? Because he had not had his contact with life 
as a lawyer has, and he had not lectured his fellow-men as a 
minister has. He was detached from every point of view 
and therefore superior, — at any rate in a position to becom- 
ing superior, — to every point of view. You must have a man 
of this detachable sort. 

Moreover, you must not have a man, if he is to be a man 
of the people, who is standardized and conventionalized. 
Look to it that your communities, your great cities, do not 
impose too arbitrary standards upon the men whom you wish 
to use. Do not reduce men to standards. Let them be free. 
Do not compel them by conventions. Let them wear any 
clothes they please and look like anything they choose; let 
them do anything that a decent and an honest man may do 
without criticism; do not laugh at them because they do not 
look like you, or talk like you, or think like you. They are 
freer for that circumstance, because, as an English writer 
has said: "You may talk of the tyranny of Nero and Ti- 
berius, but the real tyranny is the tyranny of your next- 
door neighbor. There is no tyranny like the tyranny of 
being obliged to be like him," — of being considered a very 
singular person if you are not; of having men shrug their 
shoulders and say, "Singular young man, sir, singular young 
man; very gifted, but not to be trusted." Not to be trusted 
because unlike your own trustworthy self! You must take 
your leaders in every time of difficulty from among abso- 
lutely free men who are not standardized and convention- 
alized, who are at liberty to do what they think right and 



X 

THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 27 

say what they think true ; that is the only kind of leadership 
you can afford to have. 

And then, last and greatest characteristic of all, a man 
of the people is a man who has felt that unspoken, that in- 
tense, that almost terrifying struggle of himianity, that strug- 
gle whose object is, not to get forms of government, not to 
realize particular formulas or make for any definite goal, 
but simply to live and be free. He has participated in that 
struggle; he has felt the blood stream against the tissue; 
he has known anxiety; he has felt that life contained for 
him nothing but effort, effort from the rising of the sun 
to the going down of it. He has, therefore, felt beat in him, 
if he had any heart, a universal sympathy for those who 
struggle, a universal understanding of the unutterable 
things that were in their hearts and the unbearable burdens 
that were upon their backs. A man who has that vision, of 
how — 

"Now touching good, now backward hurled, 
Toils the indomitable world" — 

a man like Lincoln — understands. His was part of the toil ; 
he had part and lot in the struggle; he knew the uncer- 
tainty of the goal mankind had but just touched and from 
which they had been hurled back; knew that the price of 
life is blood, and that no man who goes jauntily and com- 
placently through the world will ever touch the springs of 
human action. Such a man with such a consciousness, such 
a universal human sympathy, such a universal comprehension 
of what life means, is your man of the people, and no one 
else can be. 

What shall we do? It always seems to me a poor tribute 
to a great man who has been great in action, to spend the 
hours of his praise by merely remembering what he was; 
and there is no more futile eulogy than attempted imitation. 
It is impossible to imitate Lincoln, without being Lincoln; 
and then it would not be an imitation. It is impossible to 
reproduce the characters, as it is impossible to reproduce the 



28 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

circmnstances, of a past age. That ought to be a truism; 
that ought to be evident. We live, and we have no other 
choice, in this age, and the tasks of this age are the only 
tasks to which we are asked to address ourselves. We are 
not asked to apply our belated wisdom to the problems and 
perplexities of an age that is gone. We must have timely 
remedies, suitable for the existing moment. If that be true, 
the only way in which we can worthily celebrate a great 
man is by showing to-day that we have not lost the tradition 
of force which made former ages great, that we can repro- 
duce them continuously in a kind of our own. You elevate 
the character of a man like Lincoln for his fellow-men to 
gaze upon, not as if it were an unattainable height, but as 
one of those conspicuous objects which men erect to mark 
the long lines of a survey, so that when they top the next 
hill they shall see that mark standing there where they have 
passed, not as something to daunt them, but as a high point 
by which they can lengthen and complete their measurements 
and make sure of their ultimate goal and achievement. That 
is the reason we erect the figures of men like this to be ad- 
mired and looked upon, not as if we were men who walk 
backward and deplore the loss of such figures and of such 
ages, but as men who keep such heights in mind and walk 
forward, knowing that the goal of the age is to scale new 
heights and to do things of which their work was a mere 
foundation, so that we shall live, like every other living thing, 
by renewal. We shall not live by recollection, we shall not 
live by trying to recall the strength of the old tissue, but by 
producing new tissue. The process of life is a process of 
growth, and the process of growth is a process of renewal ; 
and it is only in this wise that we shall face the tasks of the 
future. 

The tasks of the future call for men like Lincoln more 
audibly, more imperatively, than did the tasks of the time 
when civil war was brewing and the very existence of the 
Nation was in the scale of destiny. For the things that 
perplex us at this moment are the things which mark, I will 
not say a warfare, but a division among classes; and when 



THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 29 

a nation begins to be divided into rival and contestant inter- 
ests by the score, the time is much more dangerous than when 
it is divided into only two perfectly distinguishable interests 
which you can discriminate and deal with. If there are only 
two sides I can easily make up my mind which side to take, 
but if there are a score of sides then I must say to some man 
who is not immersed, not submerged, not caught in this 
struggle, "Where shall I go? What do you see? What is 
the movement of the mass ? Where are we going ? Where do 
you propose you should go ? " It is then I need a man of the 
people, detached from this struggle yet cognizant of it all, 
sympathetic with it all, saturated with it all, to whom I can 
say, "How do you sum it up, what are the signs of the day, 
what does the morning say, what are the tasks that we must 
set our hands to ? " We should pray, not only that we should 
be led by such men, but also that they should be men of the 
particular sweetness that Lincoln possessed. 

The most dangerous thing you can have in an age like 
this is a man who is intense and hot. We have heat enough ; 
what we want is light. Anybody can stir up emotions, but 
who is master of men enough to take the saddle and guide 
those awakened emotions? Anybody can cry a nation awake 
to the necessities of reform, but who shall frame the reform 
but a man who is cool, who takes his time, who will draw 
you aside for a jest, who will say: "Yes, but not to-day, to- 
morrow ; let us see the other man and see what he has to say ; 
let us hear everybody, let us know what we are to do. In 
the meantime I have a capital story for your private ear. 
Let me take the strain off, let me unbend the steel. Don't 
let us settle this thing by fire but let us settle it by those 
cool, incandescent lights which show its real nature and 
color." 

The most valuable thing about Mr. Lincoln was that in the 
midst of the strain of war, in the midst of the crash of arms, 
he could sit quietly in his room and enjoy a book that led 
his thoughts off from everything American, could wander in 
fields of dreams, while every other man was hot with the im- 
mediate contest. Always set your faith in a man who can 



30 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

withdraw himself, because only the man who can withdraw 
himself can see the stage; only the man who can withdraw 
himself can see affairs as they are. 

And so the lesson of this day is faith in the common product 
of the nation ; the lesson of this day is the future as well 
as the past leadership of men, wise men, who have come 
from the people. We should not be Americans deserving 
to call ourselves the fellow-countrymen of Lincoln if we did 
not feel the compulsion that his example lays upon us — the 
compulsion, not to heed him merely but to look to our own 
duty, to live every day as if that were the day upon which 
America was to be reborn and remade; to attack every task 
as if we had something here that was new and virginal and 
original, out of which we could make the very stuff of life, 
by integrity, faith in our fellow-men, wherever it is deserved, 
absolute ignorance of any obstacle that is insuperable, pa- 
tience, indomitable courage, insight, universal sympathy, — 
with that programme opening our hearts to everj^ candid sug- 
gestion, listening to all the voices of the nation, trying to 
bring in a new day of vision and of achievement. 



A CITIZEN OF NO MEAN COUNTRY 
(A Speech of hitroduction) 

HON. FRANK HAMLIN 

THE ancient knew no prouder boast than to be a Roman 
citizen, and Saul of Tarsus obtained permission to 
speak to the captain of the guard when he said, "I am a 
citizen of Silesia, which is a Roman province, a citizen of no 
mean country." 

We are met to celebrate the one hundredth anniversary 
of the birth of the great Commoner of Illinois. As citizens 
of no mean country, we rejoice in this opportunity to pay our 
measure of respect to the memory of one of the greatest of 
our leaders. It is eminently appropriate and fitting that we 
should do this. But in the proper sense, following the words 
of President Lincoln's great Gettysburg speech, it is rather 
for us to be dedicated to those great purposes for which the 
martyred President gave his life, for liberty, for righteous- 
ness, for the preservation of the American Republic. We 
cannot honor him more than by following his example in 
the material essentials of life. The striking characteristic 
of Abraham Lincoln was his simplicity, his rugged honesty. 
It has been well said by an eloquent orator of the present 
day, it has been aptly said, that a college is the place where 
pebbles are brightened and where diamonds are dimmed. 
While I cannot say that I thoroughly agree with this, it is 
probably true that Abraham Lincoln's development was 
broader and stronger than it ever could have been under 
the mere conventional trainings of life, and I am sure, at 
least, that to be eminently great, to be sublime in the sense 
in which Abraham Lincoln was sublime, it is essential that one 
should be absolutely simple, as he was simple in mind and 
character alike. 

Abraham Lincoln was an optimist; he was a believer in 

31 



32 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

men, because his character was a touchstone which drew 
the best from every one with whom he came in contact. 
But, perhaps, after all, the most inspiring thought which is 
associated with this commemoration, is the fact that we see 
one great united nation, forgetful of any sectional prejudice, 
joining in affectionate regard to offer its tribute to the mem- 
ory of our martyred President. Is it not, in fact, as if the 
great American Commonwealth here highly resolved that 
those ideals which Abraham Lincoln advocated all his life, 
that government "by the people, of the people, and for the 
people," should not perish from the earth? 



THE SIGNIFICANCE OF LINCOLN 

HON. J. A. MACDONALD 

AMONG the men born of American women, there has not 
arisen a greater than Abraham Lincoln. It is fitting 
that throughout this Republic, from the capital to the re- 
motest pioneer hamlet, his name should this day be lifted 
high in loving memory. The honor of that name is the price- 
less heritage of every State in this great Union, whose in- 
tegrity he maintained and whose flag he saved from shame. 

But if the people of other States raise their voices in this 
centennial celebration with pride and grateful praise, how 
much more you — you people of Illinois, whose State gave 
him the nation ; you citizens of Chicago, whose city witnessed 
his first nomination to the Presidency — how much more 
should you cherish the name of Lincoln as the honorable 
birthright of yourselves and your children ; and — 

"For many and many an age proclaim 
At civic revel and pomp and game, 
With honor, honor, honor to him, 
Eternal honor to his name! " 

The smoke of war has long since cleared away. Even the 
darker clouds of ignorance and selfishness and suspicion that 
blinded the eyes and hardened the hearts of men on both 
sides, and made not only the Revolution, but the Civil War 
inevitable, have been shot through with the straight white 
light of reason and charity and truth. The men of the 
South to-day appreciate the work and venerate the memory 
of Abraham Lincoln, even as the men of the North are 
coming to honor the heroism and courage and personal worth 
of those genuine patriots and noble leaders, Robert E. Lee 
and "Stonewall" Jackson. We meet as the reconciled mem- 
bers of one great family, all enriched by the memories of each, 
3 33 



34, ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

the heirlooms of one being the treasures of all. "We come, 
all you of the blue, and you, too, of the gray, and we of the 
red-coat and kilted tartan, heritors of the same history, 
sharers in the same freedom, sons of the same blood; and in 
the speech that sways from the Gulf to the Arctic Sea we 
pay our tribute of honor, and reverence, and love to the 
memory of that greatest world-citizen this continent has 
known. For among the men born of American women, there 
has not arisen a greater than Abraham Lincoln. 

It is not for me to tell the story of Lincoln's life, the inci- 
dents of his great career, or the traditions that gather around 
his name. x\ll of that has been done again and again in 
every Lincoln renascence that has marked each decade since 
his day. It is being done to-day by those who knew him 
face to face. It is not for me to come from Canada to 
Illinois to recite Lincoln anecdotes, or to pronounce a Lincoln 
eulogy. Not as a neighbor, not as an acquaintance, not as 
a citizen of the same State or of the same nation, may I 
speak of him as many might speak. To me he stands out, 
not in the softened light of personal friendship, not even 
with the glorifying halo of patriotic devotion on his brow. 
From the long range of another land, from under the shadow 
of another flag, I see him stand in the great perspective of 
world-history, not merely the citizen of your State, or the 
saviour of your Republic, but Lincoln, the world-citizen ; Lin- 
coln, the man whose name spells freedom in every land. And 
for that Lincoln, one of the few immortals of his age and 
land, I profess the reverence which the nobleness of his char- 
acter and the heroism of his life must ever command from 
you of this Republic and from us, too, of the Canadian Do- 
minion. Into our Canadian lives he came as a mighty inspi- 
ration, and our childhood's lips were taught to speak his 
name with that respect we paid our own good and gracious 
Queen. 

I recall as vividly as if it were yesterday the night in 
that fateful week of April, 1865, when into my childhood's 
home, on a pioneer farm cut out of the primeval forest of 
Middlesex Coimty, in Upper Canada, The Toronto Globe came, 




i-T o n ^ ^ 



wAin. lK V'xl.ij.l'^li 









(Mmri 



IBSE= 



■^)-o.-t .>«J£t 



F=*Sic:3*fcsr>i~3^ 



Bronze Tablet Placed on the Site of the "Wigwam," ("hicajio, 

by the Chicano ("hapter, I)aujj;h((M-s of the 

American Revohil ion 



5 zr. 



SO --1 



X 



e H- 




THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 35 

bordered in black. Its story read aloud in the family circle 
brought pain and grief to Canadian hearts. So it came that 
my very earliest knowledge of your country and its history 
was in that tragic martyrdom at "Washington, and the very 
first name outside that backwoods settlement in Canada to 
be inscribed indelibly on my boyhood's honor roll was the 
name of your own illustrious Lincoln. 

The theme w^hich I choose is this : The Significance of 
Lincoln. I would have you stand with me for a little, not so 
close to that life as to lose the sense of its great proportions, 
but not so far away as to miss the meaning and the majesty 
of its radiating power. If I express some things with which 
some may not agree — and that must be so — it is because I 
am free to voice honest convictions with unreserve in the 
presence of free and honest men, 

I would have you consider the significance of Lincoln, the 
meaning of his life, and the reach of his influence, in the 
century to which he belonged, and in this larger century that 
reaps the harvests which he sowed. 

First, consider the significance of Lincoln to democracy in 
North America. I mean Canada as well as the United States. 
And by democracy I mean, not any party form or political 
organization, but, in the words made immortal by Lincoln 
at Gettysburg, "government of the people, by the people, for 
the people." 

On this continent, democracy is being worked out through 
republican forms in the United States, and through forms 
adapted to monarchical institutions in Canada. In both 
countries it is democracy. The democratic spirit takes little 
account of mere names and forms. 

Take the situation presented in your own United States. 
What is the significance of Lincoln in relation to the main- 
tenance and the extension of "government of the people, by 
the people, for the people" in this Republic? What con- 
tribution did he make? What did he save that might have 
been lost? 

For one thing, he served democracy by the very fact of his 
life, by the potency of his teaching, by the force of his ex- 



36 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

ample. He was by Nature's law a man of the people. He 
gloried in his kinship with the "plain people." Not because 
he was born in a rude Kentucky cabin; not because his early 
life in Indiana and Illinois was spent in sordid poverty — 
democracy on the one hand, like aristocracy on the other, 
is not a thing of external conditions, but of the very spirit 
and purpose and essence of a man's life. By birth and 
instinct and personal equation George "Washington was an 
aristocrat to his finger-tips. Abraham Lincoln, in the mar- 
row of his bones and through all the texture of his thinking, 
was a man of the people. 

Lincoln knew the people's problem from within. By in- 
tuition he understood their case and took their side. In those 
early Sangamon County days he knew nothing of the teach- 
ing of the schools on political economy, or the social problem, 
or the ethical standard, but by unerring instinct he made 
his choice. It was the spirit of inborn, true democracy that 
spoke through him, when, a raw youth in his teens, thirty 
years before he saw the White House, he looked for the first 
time on the hard and ugly fact of slavery, and in the slave- 
market of New Orleans swore: " If ever I get a chance 
to hit that thing, I '11 hit it hard, by the Eternal God!" It 
was his incurable sense of the rights of man that impelled 
him in early manhood to declare himself the champion of the 
unprivileged and the voiceless, "until," as he foretold, 
"everywhere in this broad land the sun shall shine, and the 
rain shall fall, and the wind shall blow upon no man that 
goes forth to unrequited toil." As the sinewy arrow goes 
straight to its aim, so his mind struck home to the heart 
of the age-long problem of capital and labor in all lands when 
he protested that "no man shall eat bread by the sweat of 
another man's brow." He had not studied constitutional 
history, or traced the rise and fall of world kingdoms and 
commonwealths, but he put the essential wisdom of all the 
centuries of government into that memorable saying in his 
senatorial campaign in Chicago in 1858: "A house divided 
against itself cannot stand. This government cannot per- 
manently endure half slave and half free. ' ' By such teaching, 



THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 37 

by the example that enforced it, by the life that inspired it, 
Lincoln gave proof of his ingrained democracy while he was, 
as yet, unknown outside the State of Illinois, and before 
the dream of the White House shaped his way. 

Lincoln was significant and his life told for good to de- 
mocracy in the United States by reason of his steadfastness 
in the cause of union against the fallacies of Secessionists 
in the South and the impatience of Abolitionists in the 
North. 

No man ever faced a task more tremendous at a time more 
critical than did Abraham Lincoln when he was nominated 
for the Presidency of the United States in Chicago in 1860. 
No man ever put his hand to an undertaking fraught with 
peril to interests so vast as did Lincoln on the day of his 
inauguration at Washington in 1861. No man ever found the 
way of duty more beset with disappointment and seeming 
defeat than did Lincoln during those four awful years of 
power, with their cabal and conflict and unspeakable carnage. 
With the ruler of a nation it is not a question of monarchy 
or of democracy. Coronation by the crowd secures no im- 
munity from the sorrows of the king. Lincoln, as surely and 
as sadly as any throned monarch, had to pay the price and 
drink the cup. 

He was called to be the chief executive of the nation, only 
to find the nation divided; to be President of the United 
States, only to find those States no longer united. Secession 
had already sown the seeds of disunion. State after 
State had broken away. Long before the first gun was 
fired on Fort Sumter, Lincoln saw the foreshadow of 
coming events. Other men might deceive themselves and 
might deceive the people with cries of ' ' Peace, Peace ! ' ' 
when there could be no peace. Other men in the North 
as well as in the South, among the Abolitionists as 
well as among the planters, might be ready and even eager 
to let secession have its way and to give to the slave States 
confederate autonomy as a new Republic. But with Lincoln 
it could not be so. He saw too deeply into the current of 
events to dream of peace for a nation half slave and half 



38 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

free. He took too seriously his own responsibilities as the 
constitutional President of the American Republic to stand 
idly by while disunion and disintegration were destroying 
that Eepublic and frustrating every pledge of freedom that 
George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and Alexander 
Hamilton had given to the world. In the midst of all those 
cross-currents of opinion and that confusion of tongues and 
that panic of public feeling Lincoln alone stood erect, master 
of the situation, his nerve steady, his head clear, his heart 
unmoved. 

Lincoln did for democracy in the United States what 
needed to be done, what had not been done at the beginning, 
and what sooner or later had to be done, when he stood for 
that ideal of the Republic which involved federal sovereignty 
over the uniting States and made secession mean treason 
and civil war. The limitation of State sovereignty was not 
settled by the Constitution. The question was obscured: it 
was evaded. Had it been pressed to the forefront, some of 
the States might not have come in, — had they known they 
could not go out. There was, at least, an arguable case for 
secession in the equivocal language of the Constitution, as 
well as in the fact and the fortunes of the Revolution. Time 
might have solved the problem had the aggressions of slavery 
not raised the issue. But once raised, it had to be faced. 
Lincoln faced it. And in facing it and settling it, he estab- 
lished the fabric of democracy in the United States on con- 
stitutional foundations that cannot be moved. 

And the statesmanship of Lincoln saved democracy when 
he stood first of all for the Union, for its honor, for its 
integrity, for its supreme claim upon the loyalty of every 
citizen in every State. He refused, as surely as the Seces- 
sionists refused, to make slavery the issue of the War. Lin- 
coln and his Cabinet and the leaders of the North said they 
fought to save the Union. 'Jefferson Davis and the leaders 
of the South said they fought for State rights. They all 
said it was not slavery. Both sides gave assurances to Eng- 
land that it was not slavery. Lincoln knew too well that, 
notwithstanding the fiery propagandism of the apostles of 



THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION S9 

abolition, the time had not yet come when even the North 
would pay the awful and inescapable price that the slaves 
might be free. The shame and sin of the slave traffic had 
indeed entered as an iron into many a soul. The cup of its 
ini<iuity was indeed full. But there was a pause before the 
blow fell. There had to come a crisis and a challenge. Be- 
fore the war-cloud had spent itself, the ultimatum of the 
South, making- the rights of slavery the supreme and irre- 
versible issue, flashed a revealing light in the faces of the 
North. In that light the slave power showed its true visage, 
stripped, unmistakable, the relentless enemy not of the negro 
alone but of the nation as well. 

To save the Union, not to destroy slavery, was the burden 
of Lincoln's first inauguration message. When the first guns 
of rebellion were fired on Fort Sumter, to save the Union, 
not to free the slaves, was the burden of Lincoln's call to 
arms. That call was answered by the men of Massachusetts, 
who marched through Maryland to the Potomac, blazing the 
way for that mighty host that never returned. After long 
months of humiliation and havoc and slaughter, Lincoln's 
call for men, for four hundred thousand men, to save the 
Union had a new note of urgency. But his trust in the 
plain people was abundantly rewarded. Their answer echoed 
from every hilltop and through every valley of your North- 
ern States, from Maine to California, — 

"We are coming, Father Abraham, 
Six hundred thousand strong." 

But Lincoln did more for democracy in the United States 
than to save the Union. Union was not enough. There must 
be freedom as well. And to be born free must mean more 
than the Declaration of Independence had as yet made it 
mean. It must mean freedom, not for some of the people, 
not even for a majority of the people, but for all the people. 
Democracy and slavery cannot join hands. Between them 
there must be an "irrepressible conflict." 

It was the old story. That conflict belongs to all the ages 
of human progress. The struggle between South and North 



40 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

in this Republic was not an accident. Lincoln was not re- 
sponsible for it. Southern slavery was the occasion of it, not 
the cause. Its roots ran far back into that old-world civili- 
zation from which North and South alike drew their ideals 
and their life. It was the struggle of the seventeenth century 
in England over again. It was the Cavalier against the 
Roundhead, as of old. The high-born royalists of King 
Charles left behind them the forms of monarchy, but they 
brought with them to Virginia the aristocratic spirit and the 
social ideal that made negro servitude in the South not only 
a privilege, but a right. The men of the Mayflower brought 
to New England the Puritan impulse, and it was that inex- 
tinguishable spark of democracy that disturbed the soul of 
the North. Between these two, sooner or later, couliict had to 
come in America, as it came two centuries before in England. 
Slavery was the occasion, human rights against class-privilege 
was the issue. 

When the time was ripe, Lincoln struck the blow. The 
men who signed the Declaration and who framed the Con- 
stitution blinked the slave question. Had it been possible 
to save the Union and to retain slavery, Lincoln might have 
blinked it, too. But it could not be. The nature of things 
was against it. The democracy that declared all men to 
be "born free and equal" gave the lie to the defiant fallacy 
of the slave-holding aristocracy that man can hold property 
in man. The Puritan conscience of New England saved the 
ideals of the Republic until the rail-splitter from Illinois 
drove the wedge of truth into the heart of the problem and 
split off the planter oligarchy from the life-trunk of Ameri- 
can democracy. 

The time had surely come when democracy in the United 
States must needs justify itself alike to its own children 
and to the world. It was not enough to point to an academic 
and speculative declaration that "all men are born free and 
equal," when, under the Stars and Stripes, three millions 
of human beings went out to "unrequited toil." It was 
not enough to talk loftily of "the land of the free," and to 
echo Jefferson's tirades against monarchy, when, nearly a 



THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 41 

century after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, 
the only land on all this continent of North America in 
which in very truth all men were born free was under mon- 
archial government; and the only flag that gave protection 
to all classes, without respect of race or color, was the Union 
Jack. It cost treasure and it cost blood to wipe out that 
stain, but in wiping it out Lincoln justified American de- 
mocracy before the nations of the world. 

But Lincoln was more than a leader of his people. He 
was their diplomat. One of his greatest services to democ- 
racy in the United States was in the strength and steadiness 
with which he withstood the clamant pressure of the crowd, 
even of the crowd that made him President. In matters 
of diplomacy he gave democracy worthy grounds for en- 
during self-respect at home and he added permanently to its 
prestige abroad. In his relations with other nations he so 
conducted himself that the Crowd, almost in spite of itself, 
was given dignity in the presence of the Crown. 

This meant much for the credit of democracy, for it was in 
matters of diplomacy that its enemies said democracy would 
be disproved. It would not have been strange had Lincoln 
failed. He was himself a man of the crowd. The crowd 
is notoriously the victim of impulse and emotion ; the crowd- 
spirit knows no law and brooks no check. Again and again 
the tumult of the people surged about Lincoln on the slavery 
question, on the management of the War, on problems of 
policies, and on the delicate and critical affairs of foreign 
relations. It would not have been strange had he been stam- 
peded ; others have been, before his day and since. That he, 
a man of the people, the incarnation of the powers and 
instinct and genius of the plain people — that he stood erect, 
worthy of his nation's honor, commanding respect from for- 
eign nations and recognition from their monarchs, was a 
service to government by the people which the people them- 
selves at first resented in anger and even yet are slow to ap- 
preciate and understand. 

Conspicuously true was this early in the War when relations 
with the British Government were uncertain, if not strained. 



42 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Had Secretary of State Seward's despatch been sent un- 
revised by Lincoln, those relations might have been not 
only strained, but broken. Had Lincoln not withstood the 
lawless indignation of the whole North, and released the two 
Confederate envoys, Mason and Slidell, taken prisoners from 
aboard the British mail-packet Trent, war would have been 
inevitable. On the other hand, had the offensive message of 
Lord Palmerston been sent unrevised by Queen Victoria, 
war, — war that, in Sherman's phrase, would indeed have 
been "hell" for the world, — could not have been averted. 
By the strength, and wisdom, and humanity of the President 
on the one side, and of the Queen on the other, peace was 
maintained. Republicanism and Royalty at their summits 
joined hands. In that dread hour of crisis, Lincoln, the 
people's man from Illinois, took his place in world diplomacy, 
not beside the Prime Minister of Britain, but beside Her Im- 
perial Majesty, the Queen. Then was democracy justified 
of her children. 

Turn now to the Canadian situation. What is the signifi- 
cance of Lincoln for democracy in the Dominion ? Was 
government of the people, by the people, for the people, in 
Canada served in any significant way by the life he lived and 
the service he rendered to democraey in the United States? 

It is quite true Lincoln knew almost nothing at all about 
Canada. He never set foot on Canadian soil. He had no 
direct interest in Canadian problems. But a life so vital 
as his could not be lived to itself or to the people of his 
own country alone. Sovereignty stops at the Great Lakes 
and the international boundary line, but the masterful life 
overleaps all such limitations. The man is greater than the 
ruler. In Abraham Lincoln, Canada has had an inheritance 
that through a half-century has made for the enrichment of 
public life and the redemption of public sei'vice. 

The Canadian situation cannot be nnderstood, and the 
significance of Lincoln for Canadian democracy cannot be 
appreciated, unless there is kept in mind the Canadian strug- 
gle for government of the people, by the people, for the 
people. That struggle was not an isolated case in history. 



THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 48 

It was only one of a long series of conflicts characteristic of 
Anglo-Saxon civilization. It bore the unmistakable marks 
of the Revolution in England under Cromwell, and the Revo- 
lution in America under Washington. The conflict in your 
Civil War between the oligarchy of the South and the 
democratic ideals of the North had its counterpart in Canada. 
We, too, had the seed of the Cavalier of King Charles, and 
from your own South, as well as from England, Canada re- 
ceived her share of the high-bred aristocracy. That seed 
grew into class-privilege, and ripened into an autocracy as 
exclusive and insolent as anything Southern aristocracy or 
old-world Toryism could show. And over against it, with 
us as with you, there was set the restless, new-born democ- 
racy of the Puritan, and the Non-conformist, and the rugged 
Cameronian. Conflict was inevitable. 

In Canada, the conflict came a generation earlier than in 
the United States. It was in 1837, the first year of the reign 
of Queen Victoria, that the seething discontent of the people 
against injustice and tyranny found expression in the re- 
bellion of Louis Papineau in Lower Canada, and of William 
Lyon Mackenzie in Upper Canada. That rebellion was sup- 
pressed with little bloodshed, but the power of the oligarchy 
was broken. The rights for which the people fought were 
abundantly granted in 1840, when Canada was given, not 
merely representative government, but, what we prize far 
more, government directly and immediately responsible to 
Parliament. What was won for democracy in the United 
States on the battlefields of the Revolution, and more truly 
in the Civil War, was secured for democracy in Canada in 
the Parliament of the nation. But at bottom the struggle 
was the same. 

Now, the fact of that Canadian struggle, the elements rep- 
resented in it, and the issues of it, must be kept in mind by 
those who would understand the attitude of Canadians to 
Lincoln and the Civil War. Of course, Canada was not a 
unit on that question, even as England was not a unit, and 
the North itself not a unit. In all these countries there was, 
and still is, the contending of opposite types and tendencies. 



44 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

There were in Canada and among Canadians those who S3rm- 
pathized with the South, whose affinities were with the South, 
and who wished the South to win. There were those, too, 
who believed then, and still believe, that the logic of Consti- 
tution was with the Secessionists of the South, but who, for 
humanity's sake, desired, unreservedly, passionately, that the 
logic of the War should make good the cause of the North. 
For the people of Canada, from the very beginning of the 
century, longed and prayed, and when the time came not a 
few of them fought and died, that the accursed mountain of 
human slavery might be dug away forever from the face of 
this American continent. 

Canada once had a taste of negro slavery. When the 
Loyalists of the Kevolution chose the old flag rather than 
the new, they were permitted to bring their property with 
them to Canada. That was before the days of parliamentary 
institutions in the Canadian colonies. By a special Act of 
the British Parliament slaves as slaves were brought to Can- 
ada from the slave States. But the "peculiar institution" 
of the South was shortlived in Canada. The first Parlia- 
ment of Upper Canada was established in 1792, and in 1793, 
in the Navy Hall, Niagara, the first act of that first Parlia- 
ment made for the total abolition of slavery. That act was 
drawn by the newly appointed Chief Justice Osgoode, and 
was signed by Governor Simcoe, with a grateful heart. It 
forbade the importation of slaves, and their sale under process 
of law. The relation between master and slave, a mild, 
patriarchal relationship, was allowed to continue, to the slave 's 
very great advantage; but the children of the slave were 
free. 

From the passing of that Act in 1793 until Lincoln's Eman- 
cipation Proclamation in 1863, Canada was the sanctuary for 
the hunted runaways from the slave States. It is a story full 
of pathos, of infinite tragedy, and of heroism forever honor- 
ing to human nature. 

At first Canada was far away, and there was safety in the 
free States of the North. But in 1851, the slave power was 
enthroned at Washington, and enforced the Fugitive Slave 



THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 45 

Act. From that time on there was no safe place, not in 
Chicago, not even in Boston itself, for the fugitive from 
slavery. It was on to Canada, or back with Legree and the 
lash. Between the Ohio River and the shores of Lake Erie 
there stretched a vast and trackless forest, but the thought 
of freedom was sweet even to the ignorant negro slave, and 
many hunted refugees took the blazed trail that led to liberty. 
It is one of your own American writers of the slave history 
who says: "Early in the century the rumor gradually 
spread among the negroes of the Southern States that there 
was, far away, under the North Star, a land where the flag 
of the Union did not float; where the law declared all men 
free and equal; where the people respected the law, and the 
government, if need be, enforced it. ' ' 

It is estimated that more than sixty thousand negro slaves 
found freedom when they touched Canadian soil. The cel- 
ebrated "Underground Railroad" traversed the Northern 
States with its network of secret trails, its southern terminals 
far-flung from Kansas to the Atlantic along the Missouri, 
the Ohio, and the Chesapeake, its couriers in the cottonfields 
and the plantations of the South, and its northern terminals 
at Collingwood and Sarnia and "Windsor and Amherstburg 
and Pelee and Port Stanley and Port Burwell and Niagara 
and Hamilton and Toronto and Kingston and Montreal and 
Halifax. None of your modem railroad kings has so grid- 
ironed the land or shown greater enterprise or downright 
courage. John Brown, of immortal memory, constructed his 
own branch line of that "Underground Railroad," from Mis- 
souri through Iowa and Illinois and Michigan, and made many 
a trip to Canada before "he died at Harper's Ferry on the 
fourteenth day of June"; and, though his body was left 
"mouldering in the grave," over those mysterious lines by 
which the slave might be free, "his soul went marching on." 

To the slaves Canada was Goshen, not Canaan. Many of 
them grew to comfort and prospered. But Emancipation 
Day was the day of their deliverance. From that time they 
began to set their faces again to the warm southland. Can- 
ada never would have had the negro or a negro problem had 



46 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

it not been for slavery. It is not a matter of law, but of lati- 
tude. In the northern zone the thermometer is on the side of 
the white man. 

Until Lincoln broke the slave power in the United States, 
slavery was a disturbing factor in Canadian life. The solid 
body of Canadian opinion was opposed to slavery. With the 
repeal of the Missouri Compromise, and the passing of the 
Fugitive Slave Act in 1851, abolitionist feeling in Canada 
became intensely strong. This was due to one man and his 
work more than all other influences — excluding, perhaps, 
''Uncle Tom's Cabin." That man was the Hon. George 
Brown. No man knows anything of Canadian life and his- 
tory who does not know of George Brown, the founder and 
first editor of the Glohe. A giant Scot of the sturdiest type, 
from the day he arrived in Toronto in 1843 until the day in 
1880 when in the Glohe office he fell by the bullet of a 
frenzied assassin, George Brown, like Abraham Lincoln, was 
the great tribune of the people. He was the strong voice and 
the right arm of the common people. More than any other 
man, he left his impress on Canadian democracy, and made 
immovable the foundations of responsible government. 

George Brown was a Liberal of the genuine Scottish type. 
He could not but abhor slavery. He saw it at close range in 
the slave States. He spoke against it, and he made the 
Glohe ring out against it, long before Lincoln's voice was 
heard. He felt American slavery to be a personal wrong, a 
Canadian burden. Here are some words of his from a speech 
against the Fugitive Slave Act, delivered in Toronto in 
March, 1852: 

"The question is asked: What have we in Canada to do with 
American slavery? We have everything to do with it. It is a ques- 
tion of humanity. It is a question of Christianity. We have to do 
with it on the score of self-protection. The leprosy of the atrocious 
system afTects all around it; it leavens the thoughts, the feelings, the 
institutions of the people who touch it. It is a barrier to liberal prin- 
ciples. We are alongside this groat evil; our people mingle with it; 
we are affected by it now. In self protection we are bound to use 
every effort for its abolition. And there is another reason. We are 
in the habit of calling the people of the United States 'the Americans 'j 



THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 47 

but we, too, are Americans. On us, as well as on them, lies the duty 
of preserving the honor of the continent. On us, as on them, rests the 
noble trust of shielding free institutions from the reproach of modern 
tyrants. Who that looks at Europe given over to the despots, and 
with but one little island yet left to uphold the flag of freedom, can 
reflect without emotion that the great Republic of this continent nur- 
tures a despotism more debasing than them all? How erushingly the 
upholders of tyranny in other lands must turn on the friends of 
liberty! 'Behold your free institutions,' they must say. 'Look at the 
American Eepublic,' they must sneer, 'proclaiming all men to be born 
free and equal, and keeping nearly four millions of slaves in the most 
cruel bondage!'" 

The man who spoke those words in 1852 was the dominant 
force in Canadian public opinion, the potent voice in the 
Canadian Parliament. His sentiments on slaveiy became the 
strong convictions of the Canadian people. With what eager- 
ness, therefore, was the rise of Lincoln, the new star on your 
western horizon, watched by the people of Canada. From 
the day of his nomination in 1860 until his tragic death, 
the name of Abraham Lincoln was as highly honored, and 
his course was as intelligently and as anxiously followed, by 
the people of the Dominion as by you of the Republic. His 
success was not only yours ; it was ours as well. 

When the War broke out, feeling in Canada became acute. 
The original elements of strife were augmented by the inrush 
of Southerners. Many of the best families in Virginia and 
Kentucky came for safety to Toronto, while their men went 
with Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. The planter 
and the preacher came. Their runaway slaves had been there 
already. Then came the "skedaddler" from the South and 
the "bounty jumper" from the North. The agent of the 
Confederate Government at Richmond had his headquarters 
in Toronto, and many an escapade is told of how despatches 
and orders were carried to and fro through the Northern 
lines. We had also the recruiting sergeants of the North and 
the conspirators from the South. John Wilkes Booth and his 
allies developed their schemes in Montreal. Bennett Bur- 
leigh, now the famous London war correspondent, was then a 
daredevil young filibuster operating between Montreal and 



48 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Detroit in the Southern service, and was ringleader in an 
attempt to release twenty-five thousand prisoners from under 
the Northern guns on an island in Lake Erie. His trial 
for extradition in Toronto was equalled in public interest 
only by the great trial of William Anderson, the negro run- 
away, in 1860. 

At the close of the War many of the Southern leaders found 
in Toronto and about Niagara their temporary homes, and 
their dignity, courtesy, and fine culture made them welcome 
citizens. Mr. Jefferson Davis himself visited Toronto im- 
mediately after his release from prison, and his wife made 
her home on the Canadian shore of Lake Erie, and there she 
died not long ago. 

All these conflicting forces, social as well as commercial, 
were at work in Canadian public opinion during the four 
years of the War. A small group remained stout supporters 
of the Southern cause, but the great body of Canadian senti- 
ment was with the North. While the Southern sympathizers 
were welcoming with cheers the poor old President of the 
overthrown Confederacy, at the wharf in Toronto in 1867, 
the children of the schools throughout the country, as I very 
well remember, were singing on their playgrounds, — 

"We '11 hang Jeff Davis on a sour apple tree. 
As we go marching on." 

In a book by a professor of Harvard University, published 
only a few months ago, I read the statement that, "feeling 
in the United States was greatly incensed because of the 
sympathy of Canada with the South in the Civil War." My 
comment on that statement is that more than forty-eight 
thousand Canadians fought in the armies of the North, and 
eighteen thousand of them died for the Union cause. They 
were in the Army of the Potomac, in the Army of the James, 
in the Army of the Cumberland, in the Army of the Tennes- 
see, and in the Army of the Rio Grande. They were with 
Grant at Vicksburg. They were with Thomas at Chicka- 
mauga. They were with Custer in the West. They were with 
Meade at Gettysburg. They went through the Shenandoah 



THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 49 

with Sheridan. They marched with Sherman to the sea. 
On every great battlefield between the Mississippi and Po- 
tomac the sons of Canada stood shoulders together with the 
men of the Union. They languished in Libbey Prison. They 
died in the Andersonville Camp. They answered your Lin- 
coln's call; they followed your Stars and Stripes; they died 
for your country's honor; but, in death and in life, the flag 
of their hearts was the Union Jack. 

But Lincoln's life was significant for Canada in directions 
other than those suggested by slavery and the Civil War. 
His stand for Federal authority as against State sovereignty 
had its effect on political opinion in Canada. During the 
years of Lincoln's regime the question of the union of the 
Provinces of British North America was under discussion, 
and the Act of Confederation was passed in 1867. The ex- 
perience in the United States Avas influential in Canada. The 
uncertainty in the Constitution of the Republic, of which 
the Secessionists took advantage, was avowedly and deliber- 
ately guarded against by the Fathers of the Canadian Con- 
federation. They left not a shadow of a doubt as to Federal 
sovereignty. 

And Lincoln's work in preserving the Union and deter- 
mining that there would be but one Republic, even though 
he may have strained the terms of the Constitution, was ap- 
proved by the best Canadian opinion. I quote again from 
the Hon. George Brown. In a speech of unreserved congrat- 
ulations on Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, in Toronto 
in February, 1863, Mr. Brown said: 

"No man who loves human freedom and desires the elevation of 
mankind could contemplate without the deepest regret a failure of that 
great experiment of self-government in the United States. Had Mr. 
Lincoln consented to the secession of the Southern States, had he ad- 
mitted that each State could at any moment, and on any plea, take 
its departure from the Union, he would simply have given his consent 
to the complete rupture of the federation. Tlie Southern States and 
the border States would have gone. The Western States might soon 
have followed. The States on the Pacific would not have been long 
behind. Wliere the practice of secession, once commenced, would have 
ended, would be difficult to say. Petty Republics would have covered 

4 



50 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

the continent; each would have had its standing army and its stand- 
ing feuds; and we, too, in Canada, were it only in self-defence, must 
have been compelled to arm. I for one cannot look back on the his- 
tory of the American Republic without feeling that all this would 
have been a world-wide misfortune. How can we ever forget that the 
United States territory has, for nearly a century, been an ever-open 
asylum for the poor and persecuted from every land? Millions have 
fled from suffering and destitution in every corner of Europe to find 
happy homes and overflowing prosperity in the Republic. Is there a 
human being could rejoice that all this should be ended?" 

That was the view of the soundest and best-informed Cana- 
dian public opinion in Lincoln's own day. The years that 
have intervened have confirmed that opinion. Canadians of 
to-day rise up and bless the name of Abraham Lincoln, be- 
cause by him it was determined that the Canadian Dominion, 
now stretching from ocean to ocean, would have to do on 
this continent not with two Republics, as seemed inevitable, 
not with four as seemed possible, but with one great Nation, 
along the four thousand miles of international boundary, and 
holding sovereign sway from the Great Lakes to the Gulf. 

For that great fact in our international relationships we 
in Canada give thanks with you on this Lincoln Centennial 
day. All that Lincoln did in the cause of human freedom 
and guarding the sacredness of human rights, he did for us 
as for you. And his own great life is our inheritance as 
well as yours. Under his strong hand democracy in the 
United States survived the utmost strain, and because of that, 
we in Canada are being heartened in our great task of lay- 
ing the foundations and erecting the structure of another 
democracy on the north half of this continent, in which all 
men shall be born free and ecjual, and where government of 
the people, by the people, for the people, shall have another 
chance. 

The struggle of democracy in the United States could not 
but be significant for Britain. Democracy was the organizing 
struggle of Anglo-Saxon civilization. Its progress was 
marked by the great monuments of civil and religious liberty, 
from the Magna Charta of King John to the Reform Bill of 
Queen Victoria. When your Civil War broke out, the 



THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 51 

friends and the enemies of democracy in Britain took sides. 
The aristocracy of England and the distinctive institutions 
of aristocracy in State and in Church were on the side of the 
South. The great masses of the people were for the cause 
of the North. The Government of the day was Liberal, and, 
notwithstanding what 'Justin McCarthy calls "Lord Palmer- 
ston's heedless, unthinking way," was really in sympathy 
with the Northern side. 

This division of opinion in England was not generally un- 
derstood in the United States at the time, and is sometimes 
misrepresented even yet. It was a perfectly natural situa- 
tion. Nothing could be more natural than that the territorial 
aristocracy of England should take sides with its own off- 
spring, the aristocracy of Virginia, that had transplanted 
to America the same social and ecclesiastical institutions — 
the great family estate and the established Church — and 
had adopted the same cavalier ideals of life that distinguished 
the aristocratic classes in England for centuries. That nat- 
ural affinity was made to yield pronounced sympathy by the 
representatives of the Confederacy, who cultivated the friend- 
ship of English aristocrats for the "gentlemen" of the South 
as against the "merchants and mechanics and manufactur- 
ers" of the North. 

The commercial aristocracy of England was also favorable 
to the Confederacy; not that it eared for the men of the 
South or for secession, or for slavery, but because of its de- 
pendence on "King Cotton." "When the North blockaded 
the ports of the Southern States, the entire supply of raw 
cotton for the mills was cut off, and that greatest of all of 
England's industries was utterly paralyzed. Thousands of 
mills were closed. The cotton from India could not be worked 
in the English mills. Men saw their entire fortunes swept 
away because of the interference of the North with the ex- 
port trade of the South. What wonder if the commercial 
aristocrats, like the aristocrats of blood, were out of sympa- 
thy with the Northern cause? 

But the people of England, the great common people, 
were not with the aristocracy. Their leaders and spokesmen. 



52 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

were not the bishops of the Church, or the lords of the manors, 
or newspapers like tlic Times. Once the people knew that the 
real issue was slavery, their old-tirae and undying love of 
liberty asserted itself, and to a man they stood for the Union. 
The true leaders of the people were statesmen like Cobden 
and Bright — Gladstone had not yet shaken himself free from 
the entanglements of class-privilege in which he was born — 
and scholars like John Stuart I\Iill and Goldwin Smith and the 
most eminent preachers in the Free Churches of both Eng- 
land and Scotland. George Brown went over from Canada 
in 1862 and spent more than six months in a campaign in 
all sections of the United Kingdom. His influence was pow- 
erful, not only with the masses of the people, but also with 
the great Liberal leaders then in control in Parliament. 

Let the people of the United States who rejoice to-day in 
Lincoln's victory never forget how much they owe to the 
common people of England for the final and complete tri- 
umph of Lincoln's cause. It was by no turn of eye, or wave 
of hand, that your kith beyond the sea joined in your issue 
in the conflict. Within thirty miles round about Manchester, 
two and a half millions suffered for your cause. The spin- 
dles and looms of Lancashire and the other cotton-mill coun- 
ties were silent, and the operatives day after day were within 
sight of starvation. They had no work because the cotton 
was unshipped in the ports of the South. They and their 
families were without bread. But not one of them made com- 
plaint. One cry, and there might have been a riot. One 
riot, and public opinion might have been swung irresistibly 
to the side of the aristocracy^ and either have stampeded the 
Government or driven it from office. A change of Govern- 
ment would have meant Britain's interference to raise the 
cotton blockade. And, with France eager for Britain to lead 
the way, the appearance of the British na\y before the 
blockaded ports of the South at that crisis-time in the for- 
tunes of the North would have meant — what? 

And why did the people of England care so much for the 
success of the ITnion? It was because they understood the 
issue of the struggle to be life or death for human rights. 



THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 53 

The democracy of Britain, that had won its own place 
against the heavy odds of entrenched power and privilege, 
was eagerly, vitally interested in the struggle of government 
by the people in America. They knew what was involved 
not for America alone, but for Britain as well. It was the 
life-struggle of Anglo-Saxon civilization. The common peo- 
ple of England had long heard the scoffs of the aristocracy 
against popular self-government. In those days, before the 
great Reform Bill of 1866, they heard the enemies of the 
people's rights sneer at your free Republic. They knew how 
much w^ould be lost not for you alone, but for them and for 
the Anglo-Saxon world, were this great experiment of democ- 
racy in America to fail. That it should not fail they gladly 
endured suffering and loss and hunger rather than give occa- 
sion for their own Government and the European powers 
to interfere against the Union. In ways he knew not of, 
Lincoln's triumph heartened Anglo-Saxon democracy and 
brought one stage nearer the enfranchisement of the common 
people. 

Think for a moment of the world-significance of Lincoln. 
Think what his life meant for the long, dark struggle of 
the people of Europe against tyranny and oi3pressiou. All 
down the century they had been coming by thousands from 
Tinder the despotic systems of the Old World to find freedom 
and opportunity on this new continent. From France, from 
Austria, from Prussia, from Italy, from Russia, from Turkey, 
they came. Some of them were refugees from political ty- 
rants. Some of them sought freedom to worship God. Here 
they found an open door. They learned the new language 
of liberty. They sent back to their suffering brethren in 
Europe great words of cheer from the laud of the free. 
Brave ones among them went back, and, in secret, sowed 
the seeds of democracy even in the valleys of despotism. 
Had Lincoln failed, had the Union been destroyed, had the 
Republic proved unequal to the strain and burden of main- 
taining free rights for a free people, how the tyrant-mon- 
archs of Europe would have laughed ! How the forerunners 
of European liberty would have been staggered! On the 



54 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

success or the frustration of Lincoln's task the fate of de- 
mocracy in Europe was trembling in the balance. But Lin- 
coln did not fail. His venture for Union and Liberty tri- 
umphed — triumphed gloriously. The reflex of that triumph 
meant new hope for government of the people, by the people, 
for the people, in Germany, in Kussia, even in Turkey itself. 
A handful of seed on the tops of the mountains, and lo ! the 
fruit thereof shakes like Lebanon. 

And not Europe alone, but Asia as well. In our day the 
Orient, mysterious, vast, potential, heaves into sight above 
the skyline. It means something for this Republic this very 
day that Lincoln stood for the Union, and for supremacy of 
national integrity over local interests. It means something 
for world-peace that this Republic presents a united front 
to the Pacific, behind it a united nation, the Stars and Stripes 
over every State, and to the North the Union Jack. It means 
much for the world-brotherhood that this Republic has not 
only discovered its own power, but is learning its own duty, 
taking its large share of the great human burden, and playing 
its part for peace and good-will to the world. 

And this — this service to democracy in America, to Anglo- 
Saxon civilization, to the peace and progress of the world — 
is what I mean by the Significance of Lincoln. 

What was it in this man that gave his life so great sig- 
nificance ? What was his secret ? How came he to speak with 
such authority? Questions such as these have been asked by 
every serious student of Lincoln's career. But no answer, no 
final answer, has been given. 

Lincoln's life does not lend itself to the ordinary processes 
of analysis and appreciation. A catalogue of his qualities 
does not explain his life. Other men even among his asso- 
ciates were gifted beyond him in cultured intellect and elo- 
quence of speech. Other men touched life at a score of 
points where he touched it at one. The horizons of life 
and of history for other men were wide where for him they 
were near. The study of heredity does not explain Lincoln, 
and his environment offers no clue. Blood may teU, and 



THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 55 

types may persist, but not with him. No one went before. 
No one followed after. He flourished alone, as a root out 
of a dry ground. In the mysterious laboratory of Nature 
he was touched with the magic wand. That touch gave him 
of the fire of fires. In the murky night of his early years 
there glowed that invisible flame within. In the quiet of the 
night-time, through the silence that is in the starry sky, 
there came to him that long, far call. He was not disobedient 
to the heavenly vision. He went out not knowing whither 
he went. 

"A Hand is stretched to him from out the dark. 
Which grasping without question, he is led 
Where there is work that he must do for God." 

And he went through life as one impelled, haunted by a 
sense of Destiny, shadowed by a Presence that would not be 
put by. Men did not know him who heard only his ready 
story and his ringing laugh. All that was but the phos- 
phorescence playing on the surface; the depths beneath were 
dark and touched with gloom. He was called to go by the 
sorrowful way, bearing the awful burden of his people's 
woe, the cry of the uncomforted in his ears, the bitterness 
of their passion on his heart. ]\Iisunderstood, misjudged, he 
was the most solitary man of his time. He had to tread 
the winepress alone, and of the people none went with him. 
And he turned not back. He never faltered. As one up- 
held, sustained by the unseen Hand, he set his face stead- 
fastly, undaunted, unafraid, until in Death's black minute 
he paid glad Life 's arrears : the slaves free ! the Union saved ! 
himself immortal! 

Who that reads the Lincoln story can miss the sublime 
significance of his life? Born in obscurity, nurtured in igno- 
rance, he grew to the stature of national heroism. He wrote 
the decree of Emancipation for his own Republic, changed 
from war to peace the royal message of the mightiest Empire 
of the world, and shines to-day a peerless name the world 
will not let die. Lincoln rather than any other might have 



\ 



56 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

stood as the original of Tennyson's master-statesman, for 
almost as with prophetic vision the great Laureate foresaw 
the rise of Abraham Lincoln, — 

"As some divinely gifted man, 
Whose life in low estate began, 
And on a simple village green; 

"Who breaks his birth's invidious bar, 
And grasps the skirts of happy chance, 
And breasts the blows of circumstance, 
And grapples with his evil star; 

"Who makes by force his merit known. 
And lives to clutch the golden keys. 
To mould a mighty State's decrees. 
And shape the whisper of the throne; 

"And, moving up from high to higher, 
Becomes on Fortune's crowning slope 
The pillar of a people's hope. 
The centre of a world's desire." 

This centennial celebration will have failed of its high pur- 
pose if it ends in eulogy of the dead. Our words of praise 
will vanish into thin air and be forgotten. We ourselves shall 
turn again to the common ways of men. The tumult and the 
shouting shall die. And all this acclaim of the mighty dead 
shall be but a foolish boast unless there comes to us from 
out the Unseen where they abide the enduring strength and 
the victorious faith by which they went up to die. 

It is but vanity for us to profess honor for the name of 
Lincoln if we refuse to give ourselves to carry on the work 
for which he gave his life. That work is not yet done. It 
cries aloud for strong hands and brave hearts. Slavery, as 
he knew it, is no more, but the struggle of human rights and 
social wrongs is not yet ended. The planter autocracy is 
overthrown, with none to mourn for its defeat, but the sordid 
and selfish autocracy of wealth and privilege and power is 
insolent as ever. In the darkness of your terrible streets, 
they still languish and die, by the sweat of whose faces the 
privileged and the proud still eat bread. In high place and 



THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 57 

in low, in this nation and in all nations, there is still the 
bondage to ignorance and selfishness and sin. Out of the 
silence there comes back to ns this day the voice of him who 
being dead yet speaketh : "A house divided against itself 
cannot stand." If indeed we would do honor to the memoiy 
of Lincoln, let us hear his great appeal, learn his great lan- 
guage of truth, catch his clear accents of love ; and here and 
now let us, the living, consecrate ourselves to the unfinished 
work of the dead, — 

"It is for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before 
us, — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that 
cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion, — that we 
here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that 
this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that 
government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not 
perish from the earth." 



A MEMORY OF LINCOLN 
(A Speech of Introduction) 

HON. CHARLES H. "WACKER 

THE call to preside at this meeting I consider a great 
honor; and I was particularly gratified to be assigned 
to this part of the city in which I was born and reared. I 
remember well when this district was barren of houses, and 
I remember well the gallant soldiers returning from the 
battlefields of the Civil War, footsore, weary, and careworn, 
wdth uniforms tattered and torn, marching north in Clark 
Street to Camp Fiy, between Fullerton and Diversey Aven- 
ues, west of Clark Street — a locality to-day solidly built up. 
"Well do I remember, also, the old Court House in which the 
remains of Abraham Lincoln lay in state, in order to give the 
people, dumb with sorrow, an opportunity of paying his 
mortal remains a last tribute of love, gratitude, and respect. 

No one, able to recall vividly to his mind the stirring events 
of those days, can feel otherwise than I do ; happy and proud 
to be permitted to assist in rendering tribute to the man 
who so firmly held the rudder of the Ship of State in those 
troublous times, 

I was deeply impressed by a cartoon which recently ap- 
peared in a morning paper, entitled: ''The Lincoln Forty 
Years from Now," showing a boy deeply absorbed in read- 
ing the story of Lincoln; with an inscription: "There is 
somewhere in this country to-day an unknown boy who will 
be the country's greatest man forty years from now." May 
not that boy be in this audience; may he not bo inspired 
by the knowledge that ours is a patriotic people, and that 
we, as a people, honor and revere those who serve us well? 

Therefore I believe it to be the duty of every good Ameri- 
can man and woman to do honor to those who have set lofty 
examples of high patriotism, sterling citizenship, and con- 
scientious discharge of every public and private duty — ex- 
amples which will serve as guiding stars for the aspirations 
of generations to come. 

58 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN OF ILLINOIS 

PRESIDENT EDWIN ERLE SPARKS 

"Born to thine own and every coming age, 
Original x\merican, emancipator, sage, 
Thy country's saviour, posterity's joy, 
We hail thy birthday, noble son of Illinois." 

IN all the annals of American history, perhaps I might say 
in the full page of time itself, there is written no stranger 
ease than that of the man whose birthday is celebrated to-day 
throughout the length and breadth of these United States; 
indeed, throughout all the world, wherever American citizens 
may gather together under the Stars and Stripes. Flung 
into life in the midst of the most abject poverty, he closed | 
life 's fitful fever the peer of kings and the heir of all the ages. 
Hearing in youth the most common errors in English speech, 
he yet trained himself by his own efforts to write English 
which in his Second Inaugural Address and his Gettysburg 
Address may well be compared for purity to any composition 
in the English language. 

He was a Western President, coming from the State of 
Illinois, then the westernmost point reached in the choice of 
a President for the United States. Born in Kentucky, reared 
in southern Indiana and Illinois, among Southern people, 
he loved the South; yet, in the Providence of God, he was 
destined to deal the South a blow, economically and com- 
mercially, from which she has not fully recovered to the 
present time. Such is the strange case of Abraham Lincoln 
of Illinois. 

You and I believe that Abraham Lincoln was destined by 
God to perform a definite action. If there ever was an agent 
created for a given purpose, we believe that was Abraham 
Lincoln. How shall we account for him ? 

Some say that Lincoln was a miracle. I am not willing to 

59 



60 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

let it rest at that. What is a miracle? A miracle is God 
moving in such a way as to confuse human understanding. 
Lincoln was not a miracle. I believe it is your duty and my 
duty, in order to ascertain why he was the man for the occa- 
sion, to try to examine Lincoln by some of the great laws of 
creation which have been formulated for us. 

We know that "there is a tide in the affairs of men. 
which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune"; and there is 
a tide in the affairs of the individual man which, taken at 
the flood, leads on to fortune. Yet we often say that the 
man and the occasion rarely meet. Sometimes opportunity 
seems never to come to a man, and sometimes when the oppor- 
tunity comes the man is not prepared for it. You and I will 
agree that in the case of Abraham Lincoln the opportunity 
came, and the man was ready, and success followed. 

In the brief time I have at my disposal, I can take only 
one or two of those *' great laws of creation" and apply them 
to Abraham Lincoln. First, consider the law of environment. 
We are all familiar with the workings of that law, — the law 
of surroundings. We have utilized it constantly in many 
ways ; both in our families and in our schools. We ornament 
our houses and we decorate the walls of our school buildings. 
Why? Because we believe in the influence of environment, 
of surroundings. What was the environment of Abraham 
Lincoln in his formative days? It was the environment of 
the American frontier. 

As the mass of people have moved across this continent 
from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, there has always been 
a front line of hardy spirits — the pioneers ; those who felled 
the forests; those who built the log cabins; those who culti- 
vated the fields. We call them the frontier of the American 
people, the vanguard of the onward mai'ch. Abraham Lin- 
coln lived during all his formative days on what was then the 
frontier, in Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois. Many charac- 
teristics marked this front line of people. For one thing, 
it contributed largely to American democracy. It did not 
make much difference out on the frontier who your grand- 
father was, but it did make a great deal of dilference what 



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THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 61 

you could do. It was an aristocracy of worth, not of birth. 
They had to do things out on the frontier, and Abraham Lin- 
coln was trained in that compelling environment. 

Wliat did this frontier do for the man ? In the first place, 
it taught him to investigate. We do little investigating now. 
Why? Because we have so many books. "What is the use," 
we say, "of spending time investigating, when we can read 
it in the books?" Abraham Lincoln had very few books. 
In all his youthful life he had to look into things himself. 
The lawyers who travelled Avitli him around the circuit told 
that frequently when he would see a tree of unusual dimen- 
sions or some peculiarity of growth, he would dismount from 
his horse and examine the tree. When his little son received 
a mechanical to}^, the father was not satisfied until he took 
it to pieces. He wanted to see how it worked — investigating 
always. When he came back from serving his second session 
in Congress, a number of members came with him. They 
came over the Great Lakes, around by Niagara Falls. ]\Iost 
of the party stayed on deck, talking politics, smoking, and 
telling stories; but Lincoln was always down in the engine- 
room, even amongst the stokers, examining eveiwthing, find- 
ing out how it worked. He showed a natural talent for in- 
vestigating. 

Soon after this Lincoln took out his patent. How many 
of our Presidents have taken out a patent ? I must sometime 
try to ascertain the answer to that question by looking over 
the records in the Patent Office, which is a task of no small 
dimensions. Lincoln took out a patent. What was that 
patent? Was it applicable to Europe? Was it applicable 
to the Atlantic coast, or the plains? No, it was something 
needed over here, in the valley, on the frontier. It was a 
scheme for navigating the Western waters at times when the 
rivers were low. During the Summer season, the rivers di- 
\'ided and sandbars appeared. Lincoln's plan was to put 
buoys under the keels of vessels, and when the vessels came 
to obstructions, like sandbars in the river, they would inflate 
these buoys with air^ which would lift the vessel over the bar 
and take it on. That was Lincoln's patent. He never sold 



62 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

one, so far as I know, but it serves to illustrate my point, 
that he was an investigator. And, all during the Civil War, 
diplomats, financiers, ambassadors and others testified to the 
wonderful way in which Lincoln investigated every matter 
brought before him. He investigated it in advance. That 
was what the frontier environment had taught him. 

This frontier environment also taught the man extreme 
caution. One man never went alone to plough in the field; 
two men always went together, and while one man ploughed, 
the other man watched against the Indians. And it was said 
in later times, after the country was settled, if two of these 
frontiersmen met in town, that, remembering the old habit, 
when they talked together they stood with their backs to each 
other, on the lookout for danger. I am not sure, in these 
automobile days, whether we will not return to that habit. 

The frontiersman, when ploughing, had to plough so care- 
fully that he would not break his plough, because he could 
not probably buy another plough within twenty miles, or find 
a blacksmith within a ten miles' journey. The thing which 
characterized Abraham Lincoln as President, if there was one 
characteristic above another, was his extreme caution. He 
moved so slowly in the Civil War that he never had occasion 
to wish to retrace his steps. 

I see, scattered in the audience, some people who per- 
chance remember the days of the Civil War, and they will 
bear me witness that Horace Greeley and other hot-headed 
men constantly urged Lincoln to more haste. Mr. Greeley 
called him, "Mr. Ready-to-Wait"; "Mr. Faint-Heart"; "Mr. 
Man-Afraid-of-His-Shadow." They said, "Why don't you 
do something? Free the slaves! Close the War! Do some- 
thing! Do something!" No, Lincoln, from his frontiers- 
man training, was moving so slowly that he never had occa- 
sion to retrace his steps. He even gave a hundred days' 
warning in advance before he issued his Emancipation Proc- 
lamation. His slow motion saved the Union from breaking 
its plough ! 

All this frontier training taught a man to be an all-round 
man. Think what an all-round man- Lincoln was. There 



THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 63 

was no piece-work on the frontier. You had to make the 
whole machine out there. A shoemaker made a whole shoe; 
he did not punch a hole in a partly made shoe and then pass 
it on to another man to punch the next hole. The blacksmith 
made a whole plough. That was frontier work; they had to 
be all-round men — and of such was Lincoln. He was a rail- 
splitter; he was a farmer; in a small way, he was a soldier; 
he was a miller ; he was a flat-boat man ; he was a lawyer — 
he was an all-round man. And in that crucial time, when he 
became President of the United States, it needed a man who 
was an all-round man. It needed a general; it needed a 
financier; it needed a diplomat. The environment of the 
frontier made Lincoln equal to the demands of the position — 
for he was an all-round man. 

The frontier taught him self-help. The education of the 
frontier was something different from our education now-a- 
days, when we frequently seek first aid to the injured in our 
schools; where we can have pre-digested food, and a crutch 
under each arm to try to help us along. What facilities for 
education did Lincoln have on the frontier ? He had to teach 
himself for the most part. He was in the school of Nature. 
Nature was the teacher, and Lincoln was the only student in 
the room — 

"Then Nature, the dear old nurse, took the child upon her knee, 
Saying: 'Here is a story book Thy father has written for thee.'" 

The frontier life also taught him self-reliance. When he 
floated his flat-boat down the Sangamon River, taking his 
flour to market, he had no chart of that river. The Sangamon 
was so small and insignificant that it had never been sur- 
veyed by the United States Government. The navigator had 
to meet each sand-bar, snag, and stump as he came to it. 
Likewise, when he took hold of the helm of the great Ship of 
State, whatever charts precedin:^ pilots had used were useless 
to him, because the vessel was in danger of wreck. He had 
to meet each obstacle as he came to it. He was self-reliant 
and confident always, because he had been taught self- 
reliance. One time when some general said to him, "Now, 



64 ABRAHAM LINXOLN 

Mr. President, if we do thus and so now, what is going to 
happen next year?" what did Lincoln answer? Lincoln said, 
"You know, m}'' friend, out in Illinois we never cross the 
Sangamon River until we come to it." And that was true. 
Self-reliant always — *'We never cross the Sangamon until 
we come to it. ' ' 

His environment taught the man also to speak very simple 
language. They had no time out on the frontier for sesqui- 
pedalian words. You must say what you had to say in short 
words, of one syllable mostly, I wonder what Mark Antony 
would have done with an audience of frontiersmen? He 
could not have held them for hours by his subterfuge. They 
would have said, ' ' Here, Mark, show us the body or shut np ; 
one of the two." 

But the frontiersmen spoke simple language, and that was 
the most marked trait of this great American. His language 
was simple. Many times the language he used was so plain, 
so original, so American, that it distressed those learned 
gentlemen with whom he surrounded himself in his Cabinet. 
After his second election, the election which occurred in the 
midst of the War, what should he have said? A man drawn 
from ordinary life would have said: "The people have de- 
cided by an appeal to the ballot box that it would be extremely 
hazardous to chance a change of executive in a time of great 
national peril." Did Lincoln say that? No. What did he 
say? He said, "The people have decided not to swap horses 
in the middle of the stream." Everybody could understand 
that ; they all knew what that meant. 

I see here, lying upon the table, a tablet bearing Lincoln's 
Gettj'sburg Address; and that reminds me of another evidence 
of his simplicity of composition. What were the circum- 
stances of its delivery? The Government had purchased 
some 0? the ground on which was fought, at Gettysburg, 
Pennsylvania, the high-tide battle of that great four years' 
contest. A committee was appointed to make preparations 
for its dedication. Of course they must have an orator, and 
they asked the Honorable Edward Everett of Massachusetts, 



THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 65 

a Harvard graduate, a master of the English language, a 
great orator, to give the oration. But there was one member 
of that committee from Illinois, Colonel Clark E. Carr, and 
he said, "Gentlemen, I am from Illinois; Illinois must have 
a speech there. You must have President Lincoln." The 
rest of the committee said, "He is not an orator; he cannot 
shine with Edward Everett." "But," said the persistent 
Colonel, "Illinois has got to be heard." And they finally 
decided to ask Lincoln to give the dedication address— al- 
though nobody knew just what that was ; but it was something 
important. You know the story. They postponed the cele- 
bration for three months to allow the great orator, Edward 
Everett, to write his oration. Lincoln had three months' 
notice also; but think what tasks he had to do during those 
three months in the midst of the War ! He had ten thousand 
things to distract his attention ; a thousand griefs gnawing 
at his heart. Even when he started to Gettysburg he had 
written only a dozen lines; and on the road there, or after 
he reached there (the testimony varies), he added a few more 
lines. When the great day came, what a crowd was there ! 
Colonel Carr sat on the platform, and testifies that Edward 
Everett held those people spellbound for three hours by his 
oratory. Beginning with a description of how the Greeks 
buried their dead, he proceeded to discuss secession, and the 
rights of the North, ending with a magnificent peroration. 
When Lincoln arose to give the dedication address, there was 
a great movement in the crowd. Every one wanted to see 
the President. There were cries of "Order, order, order!" 
"Down in front!" and before order was restored, Lincoln 
had finished reading his address and sat down, amidst uni- 
versal disappointment, as Colonel Clark testifies. There was 
no applause at that time — the "tremendous applause" was 
inserted by the reporters, so Colonel Carr insists. Then 
Edward Everett walked across the stage to Mr. Lincoln, 
reached out his hand, and said: "Mr. Lincoln, if I could 
have come as near striking the keynote of this occasion in 
three hours as you did in three minutes, I should be better 



66 ABRAHAiM LINCOLN 

satisfied with my performance." That was true. What had 
the way the Greeks buried their dead to do with the dedicat- 
ing of that field? What had the rights of the secession to do 
with the consecration of the battleground? Nothing. Lin- 
coln struck this keynote when he said: "We cannot dedicate 
— we cannot consecrate — we cannot hallow — this ground. The 
brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have conse- 
crated it far above our power to add or detract. ... It 
is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remain- 
ing before us;" — that was the point. The War was not half 
over — "that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not 
have died in vain; . . . and that government of the 
people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from 
the earth. ' ' That was the very essence of the occasion. And 
yet, if I take this tablet containing that immortal address and 
look it over, I shall find only two hundred and seventy-two 
words in the whole address. Who reads Edward Everett's 
oration now? Nobody. But Lincoln's little speech of two 
hundred and seventy-two words has become a classic, recited 
in all the schools, and will probably endure as long as the 
English language endures. Why? Because Edward Ever- 
ett's speech is lofty, high, full of classical allusions; and 
Abraham Lincoln's address is in the plain language of the 
people — the plain language of the frontier. Of those two 
hundred and seventy-two words, only twenty-two are longer 
than two syllables, and the rest of the words are two syllables 
or under. To get simpler language than Lincoln used on 
that occasion, I am informed that you must go to the King 
James version of the Bible. 

Simple language ! The frontier taught him to use it. The 
result was that all through the Civil War the people trusted 
him, because they understood him. They knew just what he 
was trying to tell them ; and no ruler, ancient or modern, was 
ever intrusted with the power that Abraham Lincoln used 
during those four years. 

Do you realize what he did? Do you realize he had at 
one time five thousand editors imprisoned in the United 
States? The Constitution says that free speech and a free 



THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 67 

press shall never be violated. Yet Lincoln did that. Why? 
In order to suppress insurrection in certain States of the 
Union. 

Do you realize that when the Chief Justice of the United 
States, the highest judicial power in the land, issued a writ 
of habeas corpus to get Merryman out of jail at Baltimore, 
Lincoln refused to allow the writ? Why? In order to sup- 
press the rebellion in the Southern States. 

Do you realize that he confiscated hundreds and thousands 
of dollars' worth of Southern slave property, when he had 
no right under the Constitution to free the cheapest, meanest 
slave that ever breathed? Why did he do this? In order 
to suppress insurrection, and save the Union that our fathers 
had given to us. The people allowed him to do this — the 
people allowed him to use these extraneous powers, because 
they knew that at the end of the War, when it was all over, 
he would hand back the government to them. He would not 
usurp their power. They understood him ; they knew him ; 
they trusted him ; and all because he used simple language 
within the public comprehension. 

Lincoln was reared in the Mississippi Valley ; he knew little 
about the Old World ; he never visited Europe ; he was purely 
an American. By contrast with him, George Washington 
was nothing more than an English gentleman living over here 
in America. I do not do injustice to the shade of George 
Washington if I say that by contrast with Lincoln, he simply 
reflected England. For instance, George Washington sent 
to England to get his coat of arms. He had the Washington 
arms in silver on the harness of his horses ; he also had it on 
the coach which he used as President. You are sure to see 
that coach because it is preserved in three different places 
in the United States at the present time ! Did Abraham Lin- 
coln have any coat of arms? I never saw it. If he did, the 
device must have been two rails, a maul, and a wedge. 
George Washington sent to England to get his family tree. 
He traced the beginning of his family back to the Conquerors ; 
it is just as good a family tree as you can buy now-a-days. 
Did Abraham Lincoln have any family tree traced out? No. 



c 



68 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Over here on the frontier the settlers were too busy with the 
other kind of trees to pay much attention to family trees. 
Even when Lincoln went to Congress he wrote to a man 
named Lincoln, living in Virginia, trj'ing to find out some- 
thing more about his own grandfather. 

George Washington had his clothes made in England up 
to the time of the Kevolutionary War. Were Abraham Lin- 
coln 's clothes made in England ? It makes you smile to think 
of it. As a young boy the wool for his clothes was grown in 
Kentucky and spun there, and was there dyed wath the juice 
of the butternut tree. 

The result was that Abraham Lincoln reflected the American 
environment, and George Washington reflected the Old World 
environment. They were nearly one hundred years apart. 
George Washington was President eight years and had one 
task, and that was a foreign problem — how to keep from going 
to war with England on the one side, or with France on the 
other. He set the pattern for neutrality for America, which, 
thank God, we have not departed from in all the years that 
have followed. He set the pattern that we should be free 
at Washington from entangling alliances with other nations. 
Abraham Lincoln was President a little over four years, and 
what was his task ? To save the American Union ; a task 
peculiarly American. And his American environment, in 
the Providence of God, had fitted him to meet that problem. 

Lincoln was the most original American who ever reached 
the presidency, and was also the most misunderstood. We 
have never had a man in all American history who, in his 
life, was as much vituperated and blamed, and, in his death, 
as praised and deified as was Abraham Lincoln. 

I wish I could show to you a collection of cartoons I pos- 
sess showing how Lincoln was caricatured, how he was vilified 
during the Civil War ; misunderstood always, both before and 
after he was elected President. Lincoln suffered such dis- 
advantage as few men have suffered when coming into that 
high office. He lacked nearly half a million votes of having 
a majority for President — nearly half a million popular votes. 
Then how could he be elected ? Only by means of our elect- 




The Lincoln of Forty Ycnrs from Now 




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Two I,!iic(>In CcnlcnMrv Carlnons by John T. 
y\ri 'ulclicon 



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w 2 




THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 69 

oral system, voting by States. If the choice had demanded 
a majority of the popular vote, Lincoln would not have been 
elected. Furthermore, he never could have been elected if 
there had not been a split in the Democratic party. And, still 
further, he never could have got the nomination away from 
William H. Seward, of New York, if the convention had not 
been held in Chicago. 

The corner of Lake and Market Streets was occupied in 
1860 by a great wooden structure which they called the 
"Wigwam." Horace Greeley came on from New York to 
report the convention, and he wrote back to his paper, "The 
Republicans have built a great structure which they call the 
Wigwam. God help the Indians if they ever lived in as ugly 
a building as this ! ' ' The second day he wrote, ' ' The Seward 
people have made a mistake in allowing the convention to 
come to Chicago, because they are all Lincoln men out here." 
Greeley also wrote in his correspondence to the Tribune, 
"Yesterday the Seward men began the shouting, but to-day 
the Lincoln men had the best of it." Thereby hangs a tale 
as told by David Davis, one of the Lincoln managers. Seward 
had chartered a whole railroad train and sent it on to Chi- 
cago full of New York supporters to shout for Seward in the 
convention. They were headed by Tom Hyers, a celebrated 
prize fighter, and the first day they filled the galleries of the 
"Wigwam," and the Lincoln men could not get in. That 
night the Lincoln men went out to Evanston and secured a 
man who said he was the mate, or the captain, of a vessel. 
Whatever he was, all agreed that he had a voice that could 
drown any fog horn on the Great Lakes. They brought that 
man in that night, and when the Seward men went out to 
serenade the Seward headquarters at two o'clock in the morn- 
ing, the Lincoln men stuffed the galleries full of their own 
followers, under the leadership of this captain. When the 
Seward men came back the following morning, they could 
not get into the building. The result was, as Greeley said, 
"The Lincoln men to-day have the best of the shouting." 
In the balloting they gradually won State after State, until 
finally a man sitting on the roof, and drawing up by a string 



70 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

the results of each ballot as it was cast, shouted the news down 
to the crowds in the street that Seward had been* defeated 
and that Lincoln was the nominee. The friends of Seward 
ratified the nomination with tears of anguish rolling down 
their countenances. "Why," they said, "we don't doubt that 
old Abe Lincoln is an honest man, but look at him ! Why, 
nobody ever saw such a homely man ! What will his picture 
look like in the campaign? Furthermore, with such a well- 
known man as Seward we could have swept the country. ' ' 

I say that Lincoln was misunderstood always, both before 
and after his election. You will remember that Horace 
Greeley supported Lincoln in the Tribune, and that it was 
the great Republican paper. Greeley sent a reporter to ac- 
company Lincoln from Springfield to Washington, where he 
was to be inaugurated. On the road down there an incident 
occurred, of which the reporter sent in a description to the 
Tribune, and the despatch appeared with the undignified 
headline: "Old Abe Kissed by a Pretty Girl." Yet it was 
a beautiful and touching incident. 

From a little village in New York State during the cam- 
paign, a little girl wrote a letter to Mr. Lincoln. She was 
only thirteen years old. The letter ran,- — 

"My Dear Mb. Lincoln: I think if you had whiskers on your face 
you would look more like my papa; you would be a better looking 
man." 

I suppose her father had one of the Lincoln lithographs 
hanging in the house. Now, it is purely a coincidence, but 
every picture of Abraham Lincoln showing him with a smooth 
face was made before I860; and every picture showing him 
after he was elected President shows that he had grown a 
beard during that Summer — perhaps to cover up his face to 
some extent — that is what he said, at least. When he started 
for Washington to be inaugurated, he passed through the 
town where his young critic lived. The train halted for a 
few moments. In the midst of the excitement he was stand- 
ing out on the rear platform of the train, and this man from 
Illinois, this apparently crude, rough-exteriored man from 



THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 71 

the West, remembered this little girl and called out to the 
crowd, "Is there a little girl by the name of Grace Bedell in 
the crowd ? " " Yes, ' ' said her father, and he handed her up 
to the platform. "Well, Grace, do you think I am any better- 
looking with the whiskers than before ? ' ' Then he kissed her 
and handed her back to her father. Like the Master of Men, 
the President-elect of these United States took the little child 
in his arms and kissed her. How did it appear in the 
Tribune f — "Old Abe Kissed by a Pretty Girl" — a sneer- 
ing tone. The Eastern papers saw nothing but the crude 
appearance of the man. They knew he was the tallest man 
in Illinois; they knew he was the homeliest man in Illinois; 
they knew that he could wrap one leg about the other in a 
way that no man could hope to imitate; they knew all these 
things about him, but they did not know his good qualities. 

In Albany, New York, on the road to be inaugurated, the 
committee from New York came to meet him in the car in 
which he was travelling. What did he do ? The most natural 
thing in the world. There was the committee from New 
York, and he should have been overwhelmed with the honor 
and the courtesy of their reception. But it did n't make any 
difference to Lincoln, any more than if it had been a com- 
mittee from Kalamazoo or Podunk. He took Mrs. Lincoln 
by the arms and lifted her up to the seat, and said, "Mother, 
the committee from New York is here to meet me. Tidy me 
up a little bit." Mrs. Lincoln arranged his tie and smoothed 
his hair. The committee said, ' ' Look at that ! There is the 
uncouth man who is going to the White House instead of our 
polished Seward. Look at that, — * Mother, tidy me up a little 
bit ! ' " They did not see the unusual man beneath that ordi- 
nary exterior. 

I am thinking of that first reception after the inauguration, 
and what this original President did. In those days it was 
customary in the White House to throw open the doors and 
have all the people gather in one room to receive the Presi- 
dent. The President and his wife would then come in 
through the folding doors, and go about shaking hands with 
the people. By and by the company was all gathered ; the 



72 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

diplomats and the representatives and all were there ; they 
wanted to see what this untrained man would do in the White 
House. The usher threw open the folding doors and said, 
"The President and Mrs, Lincoln." In came Mr. and Mrs. 
Lincoln, and, you remember, Mrs. Lincoln was much shorter 
than her husband. As they came up to the first group, he 
wanted to say something to put everybody at his ease. Eveiy- 
body expected him to say something relating to the Consti- 
tution, or some other mighty subject. But what did he say? 
He said, "Gentlemen, here comes the long and the short of 
it. ' ' Original American ! What does the poet say ? 

"Nature, they say, doth dote, 
And can not make a man, 
Save on some worn-out plan. 
Repeating us by rote; 

For him lier Old- World moulds aside she threw, 
And, choosing sweet clay from the breast 
Of the unexhausted West, 
With stuff untainted shaped a hero new." 

If sufficient time were at my disposal, I should like nothing 
better than to take the reverse of what I have said thus far, 
and show that while in the White House the training of his 
Western environment never deserted him ; nor did his orig- 
inality. Seward might have made a better Union than 
Lincoln, but Seward could never have saved the Union as 
did Lincoln. Seward's policy was to get up a foreign war; 
to bring in something from the outside; to throw dust in the 
eyes of the people. But you could not fool the people all 
the time. Lincoln's originality solved the problem. If he 
had done as Horace Greeley demanded, freed the slaves early 
in the War, and if he had recognized the Confederacy from 
the beginning, as many wanted him to, what would have been 
the result? We should have had two governments on the 
same soil in the South. But he never recognized the Con- 
federate States ; he never recognized them as other than States 
in rebellion. He gave us back our Southland as pure, un- 
polluted, virgin-like in its character, as when it was intrusted 
to his hands. 



THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 7S 

He never compromised. Why? Because he was taught in 
the school of Nature in the West, and Nature never compro- 
mises. You have to pay the penalty of Nature every time. 
And if he had lived, I believe he would have spared us that 
awful period which we call "reconstruction." Take the 
Southern people to-day. Have they lost the bitterness of the 
Civil War? Yes, but they cannot forget the reconstruction. 
That was a bitter period, when the "carpet-bagger" plun- 
dered the South and placed the negro in the saddle. I believe 
Lincoln would have saved us that experience. Why? Be- 
cause he was by birth a Southerner. If there is a Southerner 
here, he has a right to claim Lincoln. Lincoln was born in 
the slave State of Kentucky, and he was surrounded by 
Southern people when he moved over into Indiana in the 
early days. Then he moved to the southern part of Illinois, 
which was settled by Southern people. He loved the South. 
He never wanted to take away their slaves, and to the day 
of his death he supported the theory of compensated emanci- 
pation. "Let us buy their slaves, and not take their slaves 
away," he said. In the midst of the War he secured the 
passage of a bill by Congress offering to buy the slaves of 
any State not in rebellion; that was his theory. He was a 
Southern man and he loved the South. One day he threw his 
great long arms around Senator Speed of Kentucky, whom 
he had known in boyhood. "Oh, Speed," he said, "if we 
could get one State, if we could only get Kentucky, to accept 
our offer to buy their slaves rather than take them away, 
then you and I would not have lived in vain." They would 
not do it, and he had to take away the slaves in some of the 
States, and allow the people by an amendment to the Con- 
stitution to take them away in all the States. 

I believe, also, on the basis of the last speech that he ever 
made, that he would have saved us reconstruction. Lee had 
surrendered. Great crowds flocked into the White House 
grounds and called for Lincoln, who stepped out on the 
south portico. His long, gaunt figure and homely face ap- 
pealed to the crowd in the flaring light of the many torches. 
He got the crowd quiet and then he said, ' ' Now, my friends, ' ' 



74 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

— raising his voice to a thrilling falsetto, as he always did 
when he was anxious to make everybody hear, — "Now, my 
friends, the good news which has reached us, that Lee has sur- 
rendered, bids us fair to think that the end of the War is at 
hand. Now will come the great task of reconstructing the 
Union." 

"Whether the Southern States have been out of the Union, 
or whether they have not been out of the Union," was the 
question which Congress and President Johnston fought over 
for three years. What did Lincoln say? "As to whether 
they have been out of the Union or have not been out of the 
Union, I consider all that merely a pernicious abstraction. 
They have not been in their proper relations, and it is your 
duty to get them back into their proper relations as soon as 
possible." 

That was his simple plan; that is the way he would have 
done it. But it was not to be. Walt Whitman, the poet, 
said there were three days when it seemed to him the world 
had come to an end. The first was the day when he heard 
that Fort Sumter was fired upon; the second was the day 
he heard of the fearful loss of the Northern forces at Manas- 
sas Junction ; and the third was the dawn of the April morn- 
ing when he heard the newsboys crying through the streets 
of Washington that Abraham Lincoln had been assassinated. 
Soon after, Walt Whitman heard how Lincoln told his dream 
to his Cabinet three days before his death. What other 
President has ever gone before his Cabinet and professed his 
reliance in dreams? But Lincoln always depended upon his 
dreams. He said to his Cabinet, "Don't worry; we shall 
have another victory." They said, "Have you had some 
news?" "No, but I have had my dream, and just as sure 
as I have that dream, we shall have a victory." What was 
the significant dream? He dreamed of a ship coming in 
under full sail, every mast and sail and rope in its place. 
He believed that whenever he dreamed that dream, we had 
a victory. Walt Whitman, after Lincoln's death, only three 
days later, said, "I can interpret that dream. The ship is 
the ship of state. It has come in under full sail; every sail 



THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 



7^ 



and mast and rope in its place. It is the Union. The Union 
is saved, but the Captain of the vessel lies dead on the deck. ' ' 
And with this thought in mind, Walt Whitman wrote these 
beautiful lines with which I close : 

"O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done, 
The ship has weather'd every rock, the prize we sought is won, 
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, 
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring; 
But heart! heart! heart! 
O the bleeding drops of red. 

Where on the deck my Captain lies, 
Fallen cold and dead. 

"O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells; 
Rise up — for you the flag is flung — for you the bugle trills, 
For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths — for you the shores a-crowding, 
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning; 
Here, Captain! dear father! 
This arm beneath your head! 

It is some dream that on the deck, 
You 've fallen cold and dead. 

"My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still, 
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will ; 
The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done. 
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won. 
Exult O shores, and ring O bells! 
But I, with mournful tread, 
Walk the deck my Captain lies. 
Fallen cold and dead." 



THE FIGURE OF AN AGE 

{A Speech of Introduction) 

HON. STEPHEN S. GREGORY 

IT is well in this great Eepiiblic that we do not forget her 
distinguished sons. By studying the lessons of their lives, 
by frequently recalling their virtues and their excellencies, 
national ideals are elevated and national character strength- 
ened and developed. 

We are met to commemorate upon this centennial anni- 
versary, the birth and the life of a great American. 

Born in obscurity and of humble parentage, reared in want 
and poverty, denied almost all educational advantages, the 
plainest of the plain people, he stands to-day, secure in the 
Pantheon of Nations, the great colossal figure of his age and 
time. 

Disappointed and embittered, as he sometimes seems to have 
been by his earlier political experiences, he lived to witness 
that great triumph of human freedom, to the struggle for 
which his life was consecrated, and to which he was desig- 
nated by a higher than any earthly power. 

In a peculiar sense Abraham Lincoln belongs to Illinois. 
Here in this city, amid the gathering clouds of civil strife 
and discord, he was selected to bear the banner of freedom. 
From his humble home at our capital he went forth to his 
stupendous career, to his glorious martyrdom. Thither he 
was borne after the last sad tragedy, and there upon our soil 
he sleeps until the earth shall give up its dead. 

We knew him when we gave him to mankind. The world 
knows him now ; and to the last syllable of recorded time he 
can not be forgotten. 



76 



THE GREAT COmiONER 

DR. EMIL G. HIRSCH 

GREAT men are like towering mountain peaks. They 
stand out in bold and sharp loneliness above the low- 
lands of the many-companied multitude of the undistin- 
guished and the unfamed. And yet they are, for all their 
grandeur, of one formation with the deeper levels. But they 
catch the first flash of the morning sun, and the expiring day's 
regretful good-night kiss is imprinted upon their brow. And 
when thus the breaking dawn's blush is upon them and the 
glow of the retreating twilight weaves around them its golden 
halo, they loom up veritable torches kindled to light the path 
for the wayfarers in the valleys beneath. Like mountains, 
their magnitude escapes the beholder from too near a point 
of observation. While they live they jostle against the throng 
in the market and the street. Their voice rings out from the 
platform, indeed, but its peculiar note is not detected because 
others of lesser quality have aroused the echo as well. And 
they who in heated debate heard their appeal and argument 
or touched elbows with them as they hurried to their daily 
task, cannot but carry from the contact and concourse the 
feeling that even giants are kneaded of the clay that mothers 
all mortality. Only when time has raised a screen between 
the days in which it was theirs to act their part, and sub- 
sequent years — when what was a burning issue around which 
flamed passion and flowered intrigue has grown to be the 
cherished conviction of the later born — they who in the days 
of their vigorous manhood were rated and berated partisans 
are summoned from their graves, exemplars of patriotic de- 
votion, monuments of human greatness. When they and their 
generation have entered into rest, their fame leaps to the 
welcoming skies. It is hailed a talisman for the nation — 

77 



78 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

their grave a Mecca, where the faithful seek and find inspira- 
tion. The old prophets of Israel had power to break the 
shackles of death even after their mortality had been laid 
away in the rock-hewn tomb. This marvellous gift is shared 
by the memory of the truly glorious. 

And herein lies the deeper significance of a day like this. 
The ancient Greeks fabled about a spring with magic to re- 
store youth to them that courted the embrace of its waters. 
It is said that as nations grow old their memorial days increase. 
This is one way of stating the truth. The other is that those 
nations retain their youth who cherish the memory of their 
great. This anniversary hour visits us to bestow upon us 
new strength. It challenges inquiry whether we have proven 
worthy heirs of the fathers. For every memory is also a 
monitor. One hundred years have run their circling rounds 
since the incarnation of Abraham Lincoln — forty and four 
links of this chain mark the number of solar circuits since his 
ascension to immortality. What is he for us? What mes- 
sage for us comes on the wing of this centenary? 

Lincoln types for us the best and the noblest American. 
The mountain peaks are of one formation with the lower 
levels. The best that is within us had body and' soul in him. 
America spells opportunity. His life illustrates the verity 
of this observation. In other lands birth and descent too 
often decide the place where the late comer shall live his life. 
Destiny does not signify future; it signifies past. Not so 
in this blessed country. The upward path to distinction is 
not closed in by barbed wire. Character and capacity, not 
coronets, are the credentials which admit to the company of 
the leaders. By strange coincidence Lincoln shared one birth- 
day with Charles Darwin. The name of this great naturalist 
is forever, but nol altogether rightfully, associated with the 
theory that environment and heredity are the decisive factors 
of the equation of life. It is as though Providence has in- 
tended to bring out the supremacy of personality over en- 
vironment, and therefore called into being on one and the 
same day these two great pathfinders. If ever circumstances 
prognosticated obscurity, those did into which Lincoln was 



THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 79 

ushered in the hour of his birth. He was of good stock. 
This, in the light of inquiry into the antecedents of his par- 
ents, cannot be denied. But they from whose loins he sprang 
had but little to give him of this earth's goods. The saying 
of old sages of Israel comes to mind: "Have ye heed of the 
children of poverty, for from them shall go forth glory." 
Our colonial and national history is replete with examples 
verifying the philosophy of this observation, as, indeed, the 
pages telling the story of Biblical times are a running com- 
mentary thereon. He who was to become the saviour of his 
nation was welcomed to life by surroundings like those that 
witnessed the advent of another babe acclaimed by millions 
the Saviour of mankind. Whatever star may have shone over 
the birth-chamber of Lincoln, none in that Kentucky Bethle- 
hem was aware of its prophetic brilliancy. Poverty was a 
permanent lodger in that household. It bent over the child's 
cradle and dogged the faltering step of his brief years of play. 
It denied him access to books and schooling. It hurried him 
on to work at a time when his frame was but little equal to 
the burden. It laid responsibilities on his shoulders when 
he should have been given counsel and guidance. But all 
this contrived to bring out in vigor his dower of conquering 
and masterful will-power. Steel is won when cruel blows 
or searching blasts stir the iron to fight. Life, too, is a Bes- 
semer process. For the Lincolns, the men of genuine 
American mould, every blow and every blast is provocation 
to self-development. Circumstance for them is a negative 
quantity. Their character, the will to attain unto manhood, 
is the positive factor assuring them the victory. The bookless 
boy dies companion of the masters of his native tongue, and 
his writings stand forth patterns of classic diction. The boy 
who was denied the privilege of entering the halls of learning 
and to drink his fill at the horn of wisdom which Plato and 
Aristotle had brimmed, or to wing his tongue under emulation 
of Demosthenes and Cicero, as a man astonishes the world with 
the penetration of his insight into the ruling principles of 
statecraft, the eloquence of his pleading, the acumen and 
versatility of his argument. He, the awkward backwoods 



80 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

lawyer, throws dowTi the gauntlet to the Little Giant of the 
rostrum and shows that his blade is indeed of Saracen keen- 
ness and elasticity, and in attack and defence worthy of the 
opponent's oft tried sword. Lincoln personalized the grit of 
the American people. In him came to fullest flower and real 
presence, that combination of resourcefulness and stubborn 
pluck which crowned the American conqueror of the prairies' 
rolling tracts, the primeval forests' tangles, the mountains' 
rocky ramparts, the rivers' raging wrath. The persistence 
and perseverance which the nation as a whole applied to the 
building of the great emporia, and the exploitation of mines, 
and the erection of mills, and the spreading of markets, he 
energized in making himself. 

He himself throughout his rising years which lifted him 
up from lowliness and set him among the princes — yea, the 
princes of his people — remained the plain, modest, rugged, 
strong American. Because the genius of his people had be- 
come flesh in him, he never lost contact with the plain folk — 
after all, the supporting pillar of the great nation's greatness, 
the Gibraltar of its protection and power. Never did he at- 
tempt to put them away from him. He, indeed, was the 
mountain peak, in its own elevation proclaiming the prowess 
of the strata out of which it rises to nearer communion with 
the clouds. This kinship of his with the plain folk comes to 
gratifying light in that gift of his, in his own lifetime, and 
still more expressively after his death, the centre of an ever- 
widening circle of legend. Legend always is tribute paid to 
genuine greatness by neighborhood and posterity conscious 
of their spiritual affinity to the distinguished and elect, bone 
of their bone and flesh of their flesh. Around neither the 
ordinary nor the supercilious, is web of legend spun. In at- 
tributing to Lincoln the authorship of so many stories, many 
of which are doubtless apocryphal, the sound sense of the 
people that has given currency to the anecdotes has for very 
truth picked out the one quality in the mental equipment of 
their hero which sets into bold relief his sound Americanism. 
Irony and satire are exotics. They are bacteria incidental 
to putrefaction and dissolution. Humor is indigenous to our 



THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 81 

soil. It is the saving grace of our intense predisposition to 
practical realism. One might even advance the opinion that 
humor is the vehicle of expression of our nation's poetry. 
For such humor as appeals to us has all the elements of true 
poetic apprehension of great principles. It reads universal 
facts in the guise of individual occurrence. Our humor is 
our philosophic vocabulary. Of this humor Lincoln had 
abundance. It was the patrimony of his profound American- 
ism. In drawing upon this fund he struck a note which, 
coming out of the very heart of his people, found its way 
into the very heart of the people. He knew his power. It 
served him for a safety valve. With it he laid storms of 
passion ; he disarmed suspicion. Its copious use brought him 
all the nearer to the affections and respect and confidence 
of the toilers, the humble men and women whose sacrifice 
was all the greater in the years when the hurricane blew, 
because fame held out no promise of compensation to them — 
as, indeed, hope of recognition was not the magnet that drew 
them on. 

The typical Americanism of Lincoln is manifested also in 
his genuine religiosity. For our nation is religious. The 
solicitude for playing fair, so characteristic of the temper 
of the American people — what is it, if not the religion of 
the Golden Rule? That religion was Lincoln's. He was 
not attached to the externalities of cult. He had little pa- 
tience for the frills and feathers of the ritual. But he had 
an abounding childlike faith in Providence. This faith sus- 
tained him throughout. He felt his own insufficiency. He 
knew that human force is limited. In the floodtides and ebbs 
of human happenings he humbly beheld the working out of 
a divine plan and purpose. His simple faith asked for no 
creed. It brooked no cant. Overpowering in their simplicity 
and inspiring in their honesty and earnestness are the words 
with which he bade his townsmen of Springfield adieu when 
he set out to take the helm of the Ship of State in the stormy 
days when the war clouds were thickening: "Without the 
assistance of that Divine Being who ever attended him [Wash- 
ington] , I cannot succeed. With that assistance, I cannot fail.. 



82 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Trusting in Him who can go wath me and remain with you, 
and be everywhere for good, let us confidently hope that all 
will yet be well." These sentiments were his parting bene- 
diction to his neighbors among whom he had "lived for a 
quarter of a century, passing from a young to an old man." 
No prophet ever consecrated himself to his duty more rever- 
ently than did he in the sad moment of leavetaking, when 
the shadow of the premonition that he was never to return 
was, as his words show, even then upon him. 

But we revere in him also the American statesman. This 
term has cheapened by misapplication in these times. Were 
it not that in recent years some men of light and leading 
have taken their seat in the council of the nation, the plaint 
of the Biblical writer would be in place, ''In those days 
the giants were on earth." Liberty-baptized, the American 
people is withal conservative and cautious. In this it is of 
other fibre than the Gallic devotees of liberty, equality, and 
fraternity on the banks of the Seine. The strong strain of 
Teutonic Anglo-Saxon in our blood, and the Puritan — almost 
Hebraic — reverence for law as the proclamation of Divine 
Will, accounts for this bent of ours. We are not mercurial. 
We do not boil over. Our revolutions have not been cradled 
in the cavern of the hurricane and tornado. 

Our institutions do not encourage Titanic uprisings under 
the discontent of an evil hour. They take away all pre- 
tence of justification for indulgence in violent methods. 
Freedom of speech and press afford outlet for pent-up indig- 
nation, and offer a forum for just criticism. Our political 
institutions correspond to the temperament of this nation, 
freedom's elect. They are preventive of revolution because 
they are adaptable to the growing needs and deepening wis- 
dom which evolution brings in its quiet course. Our Con- 
stitution is a conservative document. Discriminating and 
keeping distinct, but interdependent, the various functions of 
organized government, it is as justly balanced as the rock which 
takes from it its name, and which may be swayed by a child, 
yet has all the elements of strength and endurance. In cre- 
ating the Supreme Court, this instrument provided an agency 



THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 83 

through which the growing life of the nation could be incor- 
porated into this bill of rights. It may be said that the 
Convention which framed the charter of American liberty and 
devised the means for legislation, adjudication, and adminis- 
tration to make liberty effective as law, merely modelled 
the dead material. It was the Supreme Court that breathed 
into it the spirit of life. That instrument, like all that 
comes from the hand of man, was not perfect. It was the 
child of compromise and concession. It left unsettled a very 
important issue. "Was the United States a mere federation 
of sovereign States or did the States derive their sovereignty 
from that of the Nation ? 

This perplexity would not have been fraught with grave 
peril, had not, at the same time, the legacy of slavery been left 
to the young Republic. Soon after the birth of the United 
States, the harvest of this original sin began to ripen. Forty 
years of wandering in the wilderness, compromise, and tem- 
porizing retarded the entrance into the Promised Land of 
peace. Passions and distrusts, not the cloud of God nor the 
pillar of divine light by night, decided the route. In New 
England first, the old Puritan found its voice of protest. It 
woke a ready echo in the young West. When Lincoln made 
his bow on the stage of public and political life, slavery and 
its extension into new territory was dividing the people, and 
keeping the public mind at fever heat. His elevation to the 
presidency sent the nation into the valley of decision, a valley 
which at times took on the terrible aspect of the "valley of 
the shadow of death." Statesman Lincoln had defined his 
position clearly in the historic debates with Douglas. Not a 
politician of the modern cast, but one of the old mould, 
knowing that party is a means to an end and patriotism 
must sanctify partisanship, he spoke out when silence and 
ambiguity might have been personally more profitable for 
him. "A house divided against itself cannot stand" — this 
prediction cost him the senatorship, but won him the presi- 
dency. And yet when the responsibility of the high trust 
was laid on him, to many he seemed, all of a sudden, to be 
struck with hesitating indecision. The Abolitionists were not 



84 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

slow to utter their bitter impatience. In his biding his time 
he displayed his mastership as a statesman. The deliberate- 
ness of his executive action reflects the sterling conservatism 
of his Americanism. 

No other man ever ascended throne, or assumed the pilot's 
charge of the Ship of State, under more disheartening cir- 
cumstances — the nation cleft into two — the North, not a 
united band, to support him — the enemy prepared, the Union 
unequipped ! Armies had to be created, navies had to be 
built, the treasury had to be filled, the finances put on a work- 
able basis, the jealousy of the European nations to be dis- 
armed and thwarted. Lincoln had loyal helpers, men of 
genius and of eminent power of organization. Yet his was 
the supreme responsibility. He, the man of tender, sympa- 
thetic heart, had to give the word that sent thousands to 
their death, millions into the furnace of fire. No wonder that 
his face assiuned an expression of deep sadness. It seemed as 
though in the lines of his brow, in the look of his eyes, were 
symbolized all the pathos of those four years of doubt and 
daring, of suffering and striving. Eepublics are never so well 
armored for the bloody business of war as are autocracies. 
Where the king 's will is the supreme law, the petty bickerings 
among the chieftains are soon hushed. Not so in a Republic. 
Cooperation among the various commanders is much more 
difficult to secure. With all this and worse, Lincoln had to 
contend. He bore his cross cheerfully, for he had an abiding 
faith in the destiny of his nation, a wonderful confidence in 
the loyalty of the common people. What share he had in 
directing to final and glorious victory the engine of war, what 
his part in the financing of the gigantic combat, what inspira- 
tion came from him in the work of keeping the European 
detractors of our liberty at bay, we know better than they that 
lived through those terrible years of suspense and darkness. 
Latest memoirs of the chief actors in this stupendous drama 
have thrown onto the screen the astounding certainty that 
this country-bred, lank, lean lawyer proved to be a strategist 
of no mean calibre, a financier of high resourcefulness, a 
diplomat of wide outlook. He was a statesman who has had, 



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THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 85 

and will have, but few peers and no superior in the annals of 
the onflowing centuries. 

We sons of Illinois particularly rejoice that he was ours. 
We gave him to the Union. Among us he spent his years of 
preparation. It is significant that the President that saved 
the nation was a Western man. The issues around which the 
War was fought had indeed become acute in measure as the 
West became a factor in the destiny of the nation. Were 
the new States to be kept clean of the blight of slavery? 
That was the pith of the dispute. The wheat and corn belt 
would not pay homage to King Cotton. It seemed to be in 
the order of things that the leader should hail from the West. 
Western regiments, in sober truth, composed the elite of the 
army, as the West had been the most pronounced adversary 
of State rights and secession. This West was peopled by im- 
migrants. They had pilgrimed with the sun from New Eng- 
land, the classic home of Pilgrim civilization ; and then from 
Germany, lovers of freedom, idealists, and dreamers, yet 
sturdy fanners and clear thinkers withal; and also from 
Ireland, carrying with them the hatred of despotism and the 
flaming courage to dare and to do. These new wheat fields 
furnished sustenance to the fighting nation. Their wealth 
made good the deficiency caused by the blockaded shore line 
of the cotton-raising States, for cotton had been the nation's 
means of exchange for Europe's advances in money and am- 
munition. 

The ways of Providence are strange. Three days after 
Lincoln's birth, another American was laid into his mother's 
arms, who was to revolutionize the patriarchal methods of 
bringing into the granary the fruit of the field — Cyrus 
McCormick, the inventor of the reaper. His invention, per- 
fected shortly before the outbreak of the War, multiplied 
every arm on the field, and in the barn, and on the threshing 
floor, tenfold. The time element was reduced most mar- 
vellously in the equation of harvesting. Thus the rich acres 
of the West could spare the sturdy men that enlisted in the 
Union's battalions, and yet their blessing, the staff of life, 
which they offered so abundantly, could be milled and mar- 



86 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

keted. The "West was made available for the defense of the 
flag by McCormick's mechanical substitute for human hands. 
The President from the West, when the first victories also 
were those won by the Western army coi^ps under generals 
from the West, saw the dawn of peace light up the sky with 
new hope, but then — another Moses, vouchsafed merely a 
prophetic vision of the realization — he had to lay down his 
life that the new covenant of love might be firmly sealed by 
his blood. 

When he fell, the world wept. They that but yesterday 
had carried the musket for the defense of what they believed 
to be their rights, the men who wore the battle-tattered gray, 
felt that in him they lost their truest friend. Monarchs shed 
a tear at his bier. The noblest of rulers had ascended to 
glory. They knew none to the purple bom who bore es- 
cutcheon more lustrous than was his, the great commoner's. 

But we at this hour must not forget that memory spells 
also monition. How do we measure up against him? He 
laid tribute on the graves of those that died that the govern- 
ment of the people, for the people, and by the people might 
not perish. No enemy from without, indeed, is threatening 
the permanence of our institutions, the independence of our 
State, the prosperity of our people. We have been garnering 
the harvest of the day of Appomattox. Ours is now a world 
empire. But is ours, for all this, a government of the peo- 
ple? Is it not a government of politicians, for politicians? 
Serious question this, inviting searching of the heart. Has 
increase in wealth tended to undemocratize our manners, 
our ambitions? Has it obscured our ideals, placed near the 
altar new, strange deities wrought of gold? Are these the 
Gods that have led us forth out of Egypt, out of the crucible 
of trial and distress? Has there been profounder reverence 
for law among us, the heirs of the men that were giants in 
those gigantic days? 

Great men are mountain peaks. As we look up toward the 
peak named the Martyr-Saviour-President, shall the lifted 
finger, tipped with the gold of glorious sunshine, not be for 
us sign and symbol that our way shall lead upwards? The 



THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 87 

mountain range of which he is the highest point embraces 
many crests. Grant, Seward, Stanton, Sherman, Sheridan, 
Logan, Schurz, Sumner, Morton, Yates, Curtis, and a host of 
other names tell their significance. Yet high as they are, 
their height is worthily crowned and completed in the one 
that stands out above all in superb majesty — Abraham Lin- 
coln. 



THE GREATEST APOSTLE OF HUMAN LIBERTY 

(A Speech of Introduction)* 

COL. JOHN R. MARSHALL 

NONE of the many exercises held to commemorate the 
one hundredth anuivereary of the world's greatest cit- 
izen, is more significant and fitting than the one we are 
about to begin. I say this: No race of people within the 
borders of our common country can appreciate so much the 
greatest apostle of human liberty as can the negro race. 
The name of Abraham Lincoln will live always, wherever 
the cause of liberty and freedom is revered. His name was 
near and dear to the hearts of every negro in the darkest 
and most perilous hour of the nation. The time was when 
our faith in him w^as strained and taxed to the utmost; but 
it never failed, for he felt, in spite of the dark clouds that 
hovered around and about us, that the hour and the instru- 
ment of our redemption had met in the person of Abraham 
Lincoln. 

And so we are here to express our gratitude for the vast 
preeminent services rendered to our race and to the nation 
by that great emancipator, Abraham Lincoln. 

On behalf of the Lincoln Memorial Centennial Committee 
appointed by the Mayor of our city, I take great pleasure in 
introducing as the chairman of the evening, Dr. A. J. Carey. 

* Delivered before the meeting of the Eighth Infantry (Colored), and 
the Colored Citizens' Committee. 



88 



THE UNFINISHED TASK 

{A Speech of Introduction)* 

REV. A. J. CAREY 

ONE hundred years ago to-day the wilds of Kentucky 
gave to America an American, rugged as his surround- 
ings in all save his kindliness of spirit, unprepossessing in 
all save his beauty of soul. The woi'ld saw him while he 
lived, as through a glass, darkly. To-day the vision becomes 
more distinct, although not altogether clear. 

The heroic effort made this week by old America in mem- 
ory, by new America in prophecy, to find itself, to know 
itself, is worthy of so noble an occasion. From church, from 
schoolhouse, from college, and from public hall one and the 
same strain floats forth: "Lincoln, Liberty, and Love." 
The quiet of the private home, the noises of the busy mart, 
are lost in one great anthem, one mighty paean of praise. 

That marvel of the twentieth century, the daily press, has 
labored overtime that none may be ignorant, that even the 
humblest may know and receive inspiration from Lincoln 's life 
and times. The minor strain, the note of regret, is, that the 
life then just beginning should have been laid so untimely 
as a sacrifice on its country's altar, leaving its task un- 
finished. 

The unfinished task, who will assume it? The task of 
loving the nation — not the sections simply but the nation — 
into one ; the task of throwing himself with God, and count- 
ing a majority on the side of the oppressed ; the task of doing 
the right as God gives him to see the right. 

If the spirit world has interest in this material world, 
how depressed must be the spirit of Lincoln at the backward 
swinging of the pendulum, at the retreat of American senti- 

* Delivered before the meeting of the Eighth Infantry (Colored), 
and the Colored Citizens' Committee. 

89 



90 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

ment from the glory-crowned heights of freedom for all, to the 
valley of restriction and class legislation. The call of the 
sixties was for a man of heroic mould, a man who had been 
"driven many times to his knees by the overwhelming con- 
viction that he had nowhere else to go." Such was the call 
and Lincoln was its answer. 

The call in this, the morning of the twentieth century, is 
for a character no less true, a soul no less courageous, a 
spirit no less reliant upon its God — another man who will 
rise up and say, "The nation cannot live on injustice." 
Whence next will come the answer ? for come it will and come 
it must. The country still lives upon Lincoln's ideals; still 
grows because of his sacrifices ; and still marches in his spirit 
to meet and master the problems of to-day, whether social, 
industrial, or racial. 

In him we have found the sources of abiding, conquering 
character. With him we have seen that to "allow all the 
governed an equal voice in the government — -that, and that 
alone is self-government." With him we have seen that "in 
giving freedom to the slave" — physical freedom, intellectual 
freedom, political freedom — we assure freedom to the free. 

Nothing stamped with the Divine image was sent into the 
world to be trodden on, to be degraded and imbruted by 
his fellows, and he who denies to the weakest of mankind the 
right, the privilege, the opportunity of rising to his greatest 
possibilities, not only displays his own cowardice and weak- 
ness but robs posterity of a legacy which a life enriched and 
glorified might bequeath to coming generations. 

It is not Lincoln, the lawyer, nor Lincoln the politician, 
nor even Lincoln the statesman that will survive ; but Abra- 
ham Lincoln, the friend of the oppressed, the champion of 
human rights, the great emancipator. Of him we speak and 
in his memory are we gathered, and with him we are dedi- 
cating ourselves to the great task remaining before us, the 
task remaining before this nation, the cherished hope of his 
life, "that government of the people, by the people, for the 
people, shall not perish from the earth." 



THE LIBERATION OF THE NEGRO * 

REV. J. W. E. BOWEN 

EVEN the schoolboy of to-day may easily interest an 
audience upon any phase of the life and deeds of Abra- 
ham Lincoln. It is not a difficult task, therefore, to gain 
attention, for the life of the man is full, his deeds are per- 
manent, and his character is far-reaching in the superb and 
dominating elements that are appreciated by all mankind. 
I take it that the best thing to do on this occasion is to call 
your attention to some of the fundamental ideas that crys- 
tallized into deeds of the immortal Lincoln. 

The name of Abraham Lincoln and the Emancipation 
Proclamation should be spoken with one breath. It is im- 
possible to separate them. But there is more to the Emanci- 
pation Proclamation in its essence and truth than the mere 
removing of the shackles of the slave, and the freeing of 
man from between the plough handles to enter the battle of 
life. Larger results were contemplated by Lincoln than the 
liberation of dimib driven cattle from between the plough 
handles of the South. Mightier results were before him 
than merely to see four millions of ignorant and stupid 
blacks set free upon this American continent. His thought 
reached beyond the liberation of hand and foot. He who 
knocks the manacles from the wrists of the slave has done 
a great thing; but that is only the beginning of the work 
of emancipation. Utter, complete emancipation, not only of 
hand and foot, but of mind and heart, and a complete amal- 
gamation into the body politic as a citizen of the mighty 
Republic, is the ultimate hope and the larger result to be 

* An address delivered before the meeting of the Eighth Infantry 
(Colored), and the Colored Citizens' Committee. 

91 



92 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

looked forward to as the outcome of the emancipation of 
the slave. 

We have come to a period in the discussion of this question 
when we must regard truth and not sentiment ; when we 
must see fact and logic, and not be driven by whim. No 
race can be fully set free by shot and shell. Gunpowder 
cannot liberate a man in the truest and fullest sense of 
the term. Shot and shell make a beginning; but freedom 
is not "of the earth, earthy." Abraham Lincoln repre- 
sented the American nationality — the American nationalism, 
— a mighty thought. 

We have the proudest Republic under the sun. It is a 
Republic not composed of white men nor of black men, but 
of men, free men. Freedmen do not make a Republic. 
This is a Republic of men — free men, in the broadest sense 
of the term. The removal of the shackles is only the be- 
ginning of the mighty battle in life wherein the slave is to 
be ultimately redeemed and incorporated into the body politic 
as a factor in the life of the American nation. This period 
is one in which the battle is of thought and ideas; it is a 
battle for the supremacy in thought-products, in the mas- 
tery of the forces of nature in producing those elements that 
contribute to the advancement of civilization, and only the 
man who contributes to this desired end should be incorpo- 
rated ultimately into this body politic. It is time that we 
should face this great question that fundamentally affects 
citizenship. 

I am not afraid to use a term here which I can explain 
satisfactorily to any thinking man. Lincoln's idea and the 
idea of the broadest statesman was that the liberated slave 
should ultimately become amalgamated with the American 
Republic and become a member of this great nation. For, 
as he said, "The nation cannot long survive, permanently 
survive, one half free and one half slave." Even so, like- 
wise, it cannot permanently survive with a great body of 
freedmen that have no right and title in the Republic as 
citizens to help direct its life and establish its destiny. 

The American negro must understand that he must enter the 



THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 93 

battle of life and fight to-day the mightiest battle on the face 
of the globe. No man in the flesh has ever had such a con- 
flict before him. It is the most difficult and the most danger- 
ous undertaking on this footstool. For, look at the conditions 
that have surrounded him. He came from between the 
plough handles, with only a knowledge of ploughing. He 
was thrown into the lap of this mighty Christian civilization, 
and he was given the right of citizenship — a fearful boon 
to confer upon any unprepared man in any Republic. For 
the man who has the right to vote, has the right to be voted 
for. 

I have no hesitancy in saying that it was hazardous at 
the time to place in the hands of these ignorant ex-slaves 
the ballot. Hear me through upon this dangerous question. 
I recognize that I am now walking upon eggs. I also recog- 
nize that there are some eggs that should be walked upon. 

Look, if you please, at the pedigree of the ancient black 
slave. "What did he have behind him? The story is a 
pathetic one. It is one that is full of sorrow and of intense 
interest. From the mud puddles of Africa, in the Provi- 
dence of God he was dragged, as it were, with hooks of 
steel, and transplanted upon this American continent. 
There was nothing back of him of which he could be proud — 
no illustrious pedigree. His firmament was a starless firma- 
ment; his history was unproductive of great men or great 
women. When I think of what he came from, the story of 
the young son of the Grand Marshal of Paris comes to my 
mind. This young man was walking in the streets of Paris 
one day, when a company of young Frenchmen gathered 
around him and began to taunt him. One of them said, 
"I have the blood of a duke in me. What blood is in you, 
sir?" Another said, ''I can trace my ancestry back to a 
queen. How far back can you go, sir?" And a third one 
piped up and said, "I can go back, back, back to the mighty 
days of Charlemagne. How far back can you go, sir?" 
Finally the last one lifted his voice and said, '*I can trace 
my ancestry back, back, back, away beyond the mythological 
days of Julius Caesar when the Druids drank the blood of 



94 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

their victims out of the skulls of the dead. How far back 
can you go, sir?" Then the young man rose, his eye as 
the wing of the raven under the blaze of the sun, and shouted 
back to them and said, "Gentlemen, you are descendants; I 
am an ancestor. Your history has been written ; I am going 
to write one. You have been made; I am going to make 
somebody ! ' ' 

I look about me upon this platform and I see representa- 
tives of the mighty race that lived in the days when the great 
Irish bishop drove the snakes out of Ireland. I see here at 
my left, and at my right, and just behind me, and all through 
the audience, representatives of that mighty yeomanry that 
stood in the presence of the weakling King John, and com- 
pelled him to sign "Magna Charta," to assure the rights of 
the people of England. I look at others. Who are these 
men ? These are the descendants of the men who followed in 
the wake of the mighty Gustavus, who, singing the battle 
hymn of Martin Luther, bit the dust and died for the liber- 
ties of his people. These men had ancestors who were kings 
and queens, who were the writers and wreckers of constitu- 
tions and of governments; ancestors who wrote books of law 
and laid the foundations of nations; ancestors who were 
mighty with pen and sword, who dominated the forces of 
sky and earth. These white men who sit here in the pride 
of American citizenship are the descendants of an illustrious 
ancestry. But who am I? Where did I come from? 

I dare not step back one foot lest I fall into the pit from 
which God Almighty, through Abraham Lincoln, digged me. 
Even now, with the memory of ray ancestors illuminating my 
brain, I can hear the pathetic wail of the bloodhound that 
tracked them through the South. I have no kings and proph- 
ets back of me. No queens illuminate the firmament of my 
history. No men who wrote constitutions and laid the foun- 
dations of a government are back of me. 

Who am I ? The blue-eyed Saxon had his history written ; 
the black-eyed Ilamite will write his. lie has been made; I 
am going to make somebody. "He is a descendant; I am 
an ancestor!" It is my business since the Proclamation has 



THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 95 

been written, to take hold of the mass of my ignorant people 
of the South — docile, tractable, easily moulded and easily 
guided — and mould them, and make a mighty people out 
of them. Once upon a time I used to be disturbed when it 
was said that the negro came from the monkey, the baboon, 
the chimpanzee, and the gorilla of Africa. I can remember 
attending a white Sunday-school where the superintendent, 
an old shouting Methodist, once made my boyish teeth 
chatter and my knees smite each other by saying, **Boys, 
I don 't know where you came from ; it is said you came 
from the monkeys of Africa." And I can remember how I 
trembled. To this day, with certain people, if you want 
to throw a wet blanket over the meeting, mention monkeys. 
Now it does not trouble me one whit. If any man can show 
by history, Bible, logic, or fact that I am a descendant from 
the baboon of Africa, I will prove that a baboon can have a 
respectable son, I don't care for a past. I ask to-day, 
"Where are you going?" "What are you?" not "Where 
did you come from?" I don't care whether I had any grand- 
fathers or not. I don't want to be an angel; I want to be a 
man — not a black man, but a man though black. 

In this mighty country we have a Republic that is based, 
not upon the color of the skin but upon a national idea. 
Nationalism makes a Republic, and not blood or color. In 
the ancient days of Greece and in the present days of Italy, 
China, and Japan, blood makes a nation. Blood may make a 
race or an ancient nation, but blood does not make a Democ- 
racy ; it does not make a nation in the broadest sense of the 
term. In this country we have all races, all types of man- 
kind to make the American Republic. You sang here this 
evening "The Star-Spangled Banner." You doubtless have 
sung already to-day or will sing, "My country, 'T is of 
Thee." That spirit of sentiment makes a citizen of a Re- 
public — the sentiment of loyalty to the flag, to the Consti- 
tution, and to the institutions of the land. But you must 
understand that the conditions of life favor you in the 
battle and in the struggle for existence. We must struggle 
for the preservation of the nation, the building up of one 



96 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

homogeneous nation ; not homogeneous in its blood but ho- 
mogeneous in its Nationalism. I want to say I have no fears 
as to the twaddle and superficial talk about the destruction 
of the bloods of mankind, for do\\Ti underneath all of this 
frothy discussion there is but one race and it is homogeneous 
in its divine endowments. 

It is not my place to discuss a theory of the library, but to 
face the facts of life ; namely, just as you are, just where you 
are, in the station of life you are in, you must fight the battle 
of life. And it is a fight in which superiority will manifest 
itself in the ultimate development of character. 

Finally, the character of the individual, in his mind power, 
his heart power, his hand power, and in the production of 
those elements that are the best, constitutes the superiority 
of man. In this development and in this tremendous strug- 
gle we have a part and lot. Starting with very little to un- 
learn, with everything to learn, with all the benefits of a 
western civilization within hand-reach, the American negro, 
in the face of untoward circumstances has made tremendous 
strides towards victory, I grant that there are obstacles, and 
I don't weep over obstacles. Though he is crowded back 
at times, I am not discouraged. 

I come from a section where, if a black man gets anything, 
he gets it upon sheer merit. He has to struggle in the face 
of opposition; and yet, after all, he is winning his way in 
the acciunulation of property, in the estimation of good men 
and good women ; he is making character, and we believe 
down in Georgia — down there where occasionally we string 
a man up — we believe, we black men and white men, that 
down there in Georgia, we will fight this battle out and win 
it. All around us representative white men rise up and 
say to us: "Stand your ground, we will stand with you." 
Some of the best men are fighting with us and are standing 
at our side. 

This celebration of the hundredth anniversary of the birth- 
day of the great, martyred War President is observed all over 
the country, and we believe that ultimately we shall have 
a nation in this country that is united in its faith, in its. 



THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 97 

zeal, in its absolute equality of political prerogatives, in its 
great purpose to make this the proudest nation on the face 
of the earth. 

Just one other thought and then I am through. You must 
remember that in the City of Chicago, in the great State of 
Illinois, you have your part to do in this great battle. You 
have greater privileges than we have in the black belt of 
Alabama. Every door is open to you. You have yet to 
show in the years to come that you can wring out of your 
privileges the large good that we have wrung out of our 
disadvantages. In university life, in trades, in the accumu- 
lation of wealth, in the building of an honest character, in 
the making of men in face of difficulty without being dis- 
couraged, in meeting opposition without taking to the woods, 
you have yet to show that you can surpass your brethren 
on the plains of Texas. 

I believe that we shall ultimately conquer in this great 
battle of life. We have great problems before us — great 
questions are under discussion. The negro should become 
a participant in the discussions and contribute to the life 
of the nation. I am glad of this privilege to bring this word 
of encouragement to you from the far South, from the land 
where you think it is extremely hard. Yes, it is hard, in 
some places. You have opportunities here that I sometimes 
covet, but I would prefer to ride in a box car in the South 
as a man doing something, fighting a battle, to riding in 
a palace car up here and generally doing nothing else. 

You must liberate yourselves; you must not have anything 
more done for you. Legislation cannot make men, it can 
only prepare the way for the development of men. Law 
never makes one man equal to another man ; there is no such 
thing as equality of manhood, and the American nation does 
not believe in this figment. You cannot make me believe 
that a certain black man is equal to a certain white man ; and 
you would have a hard job to persuade me that a certain 
white man is equal to a certain black man. 

Races differ, like individuals. They differ in their apti- 
tudes, in their intellectual capacity. The mighty German 



98 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

race is philosophic in its temper; the versatile Frenchman is 
mathematical in his make-up ; the unconquered Anglo-Saxon 
is the scientist and the moralist of the world ; and the negro is 
the musician of the world. 

I believe that a man must himself make himself superior. 
You must make yourselves, you must liberate youreelves. 
Brain, cultivated brain, educated brain, skilled hands, a 
divine heart, a noble purpose, lofty ideals, the vision that 
reaches to the White Throne, make men— nothing else. You 
must not measure the man by the color of his skin. Great 
as Abraham Lincoln was, he was not great because he was 
white. He was great because he had a great soul in him. 

The man of backbone has heart and will and courage and 
skill. The race is yours. Enter the battle. Don't ask to 
be given a chance. Don't plead for a chance. Enter the 
race. Make a chance. Take a chance. Fight the battle of 
life, and the time will come when the gray morn shall usher 
in that beautiful day when we shall be able to say, "It is 
daybreak everywhere." 



LINCOLN: THE FRIEND OF ALL MEN* 

NATHAN WILLIAM MAC CHESNET 

IT is peculiarly fitting that in the celebration of the Centen- 
ary of Lincoln you should have a conspicuous part. Surely 
no one has a larger interest in Abraham Lincoln, his life 
and his services. As a boy I was brought up with a venera- 
tion for him second only to that for the great Master himself. 
My father had the privilege of knowing him intimately, and I 
have, therefore, in connection with this celebration, felt, in 
addition to the great interest in Lincoln which every American 
citizen must have, a little of that personal interest which one 
may sometimes feel because of his father's friendship for 
the man himself. 

Lincoln stood, as no other man has ever stood, for the ideals 
of the entire nation. He was the embodiment of American- 
ism. It is seldom that a man can be looked to as Lincoln was 
by all classes of society, by all sections, by all nationalities. 
Yet it has been the privilege of Lincoln within a single gen- 
eration to come to the position where tribute to him knows 
no sectional lines — no North, no South ; no East, no West ; no 
rich, no poor ; no 'Jew, no Gentile ; no white, no black ; all turn 
to him in homage. 

It matters not from what direction we view Lincoln, he 
appears equally great. Most men, as you look at them, seem 
to have a narrow side. Not so with him. He looms as large, 
in our estimate of him, regardless of the angle of approach. 
He stood for the equal rights of man, for equal opportunities 
for all men. He stood for freedom of labor and an oppor- 
tunity on the part of every man to earn an honest living, 
uninterrupted by economic conditions or political restrictions. 

*An address delivered before the Eighth Infantry (Colored), and 
the Colored Citizens' Committee. 

99 



100 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Would that his spirit might inspire this nation, as never before, 
as the result of this celebration. Lincoln was indeed, as I 
have said, the very apotheosis of citizenship. We have deified 
him — and very justly so — as no other man in public life, until 
to-day we turn to him with very worship, because he stands 
for our ideals, for our aspirations, for all that is best in us 
and in our nation, and as the hope for the future. 

We can only hope that this observance of Lincoln and his 
life and deeds will not end with this night, nor with the cele- 
bration itself, but may take lasting form in an increase in 
appreciation of the principles for which he stood ; in a deeper 
inculcation of those principles in the hearts of all the people 
North and South, in order that his ideas and ideals may be 
worked out through the political institutions of this country, 
as he desired them to be. 

There are some who think Lincoln did not have a special 
interest in the people I have the honor of addressing to-night. 
I think they are very poor students of history. They have 
failed to catch even a spark of the genius of the man whose 
anniversary they are celebrating. They have failed to see 
that heart, kindled for the interest of all the races, as was 
that of no other man of his time. It is true he refused to 
sacrifice the Union and to precipitate a crisis, but awaited the 
strategic moment in order that he might fulfil a life-long 
purpose and prove to all the peoples of the earth that the fore- 
fathers knew what they were about, and that the Declaration 
of Independence means what it says. 

I have no patience with the man who takes the view that 
emancipation was a mere question of war expediency, who 
thinks that Lincoln was so narrow in his view, and who re- 
gards with prejudice and alarm any other interpretation of 
that culmination of Lincoln's hopes and purposes. I have 
no use for the man who cannot see in history that Lincoln 
stood for things he said he believed. As is the case with any 
great man, if we acknowledge him to be great, we must be- 
lieve him to be sincere, and Lincoln has said in substance, he 
has said in his words, in his deeds, that he meant that all men 



THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 101 

should be equally free, with equal privileges and equal op- 
portunities before the law. 

Abraham Lincoln was a man of the people. He stood for 
Aiuerieanism. He was, as has been said, ''the first Ameri- 
can," because he was a product of all the forces that had 
gone to make America, and in him were all the elements which 
make America great and differentiate it from the older civ- 
ilizations and the old world. He was the friend of all men. 
In Lincoln the hopes and aspirations of us all find expression, 
and I pray that he may be followed in these latter days as an 
example, for political action, for the highest and best citizen- 
ship, for the type of manhood that makes for progress in the 
democracy of the world. 

I would like to take occasion here to say that the city of 
Chicago is proud, I am sure, of this great mass meeting here 
to-night. The general Committee has found the officers of the 
Eighth Infantry and of your Committee ever ready to co- 
operate with it and an admirable desire on their part to for- 
ward the purposes of the centenary which has inspired us to 
give much time to it, and to go forward with an enthusiasm 
to which the prospect of such a celebration as you have here 
to-night in no small degree contributed. 

On behalf of the Committee of One Hundred, it gives me 
great pleasure to-night to present to the Eighth Regiment, 
to place upon the walls of its regimental armory, a bronze 
tablet containing the Gettysburg Address of Abraham Lin- 
coln, that lofty statement of patriotism which has never been 
excelled. I trust that it may be an inspiration to the men of 
that regiment, as it was to the men of the regiments of Lin- 
coln's time, and has been to all American citizens who have 
taken the trouble to read its lines and observe its lessons. 

I deem it a high honor to be here as a representative of my 
city upon this memorable Centenary, which will long live in 
the annals of our metropolis, and to speak here on behalf of 
that city in commemoration of the man who has stood, as no 
other man has ever stood, for Americanism and everything it 
represents to all of us who strive to make justice and equity 
between men the guiding principle of our laws and their en- 
forcement. 



THE NEGRO'S PLACE IN NATIONAL LIFE* 

HON. WILLIAM J. CALHOUN 

I DID not know until a few days ago that I was expected 
to speak at this meeting, and I have not had time to give 
much thought to what I shall say to you. Indeed, I am 
very much in the same frame of mind as was the colored 
minister of whom I once heard. He belonged to a ministerial 
association, where ministers were wont to come together to 
discuss questions affecting the church and their professional 
work. One afternoon they had up for discussion the sub- 
ject of the preparation of sermons. One of the brethren 
said he always selected his text on Monday morning for the 
following Sunday's sermon. He thought of it all through 
the week; subdivided it into its various heads; and filled 
in the skeleton or outline thus made, by reflections from day 
to day throughout the week; so that when Sunday came, he 
had his sermon complete in his mind. The colored brother 
said he did not like this plan ; that it was not the way in 
which he prepared his sermons. He did not like the proposed 
plan for the reason that it is well known that the Devil is 
always loose in the land, sometimes roaring like a lion, some- 
times bleating like a lamb; that he is very smart; that he 
knows everything going on ; and he would know the text 
selected so far in advance, and would be fully informed 
as to what the sermon was to be. He would then go to 
work on the minds of the members of the congregation, 
and get them in a mental condition which would prompt 
them to resist the influence of the sermon ; so that when 
it was delivered, it would do no good whatever. So, he said, 
his way was, when he went into the pulpit, to open the 

* An address delivered before the meeting of the Eighth Infantry 
(Colored), and the Colored Citizens' Committee. 

102 



THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 103 

Bible and take for his text the first verse his eye fell upon ; 
and then neither the Devil, himself, nor anyone else would 
know what he was going to say. 

Speaking of preachers, it reminds me of another story I 
heard of an old Scotch Presbyterian minister, who was very 
fond of theological or dogmatic discussions. He prided him- 
self on his familiarity with the Scriptures. He never had 
to open the Bible to quote a verse or cite a passage ; but, like 
everyone else, he sometimes made mistakes, only he was never 
willing to admit it. He had in his congregation a very 
critical deacon by the name of Sandy McPherson, who was 
also fond of dogma; he always listened closely to the minis- 
ter's sermon, to see if he could find any slip or misstate- 
ment of doctrine; if he did he was very quick to express 
his dissent, and to argue the question with the minister. 
He sometimes spoke right out in meeting, and expressed his 
objections. One Sunday the minister went into the pulpit 
and said, "My brethren, I will take for my text this morning 
the miracle of our Saviour wherein he fed five men on five 
thousand loaves and fishes. ' ' And Sandy McPherson said out 
loud, ' ' Huh ! I could do that myself. ' ' The minister did not 
notice the mistake or the interruption, but went on with his 
sermon. Afterwards his attention was called to the mistake 
he had made, but he said nothing. The next Sunday he went 
into the pulpit and said, "My brethren, I will preach this 
morning on the miracle of our Saviour wherein he fed five 
thousand men on five loaves and fishes"; and then looking 
down, he said, "Sandy, could you do that?" And Sandy 
promptly replied, "Aye, I cud." "Well, how cud you?" 
said the minister, and Sandy said, "I would feed them with 
what was left over from last Sunday." 

Speaking seriously, I wish I could utter the thoughts that 
are struggling in my mind for expression. I would bring 
a message to you, one that would help and comfort you. 
In the celebration of Abraham Lincoln's birth, we naturally 
think of you. No such celebration would be complete unless 
you had a part in it. The shadow of the great tragedy in 
which he died hangs over you. 



104 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

The Civil War was a contest in which life and blood and 
treasure were spent without stint. Men — strong men — were 
fighting and dying, and women were weeping everywhere. 
It was a terrible struggle. And your race was the cause, 
the helpless and innocent cause, of it all. For men may 
talk about the Constitution, the relation of the States to the 
federal government, and of the right or wrong of secession 
or coercion — the fact remains, that you, the negro, were the 
innocent cause of the whole trouble. 

I know of no race which has had so much to contend with, 
so many obstacles to overcome, so many limitations to endure, 
as your race has had. In the first place, your ancestors were 
hunted down in the forests of Africa, bound hand and foot, 
throwTi into the foul and sweltering hold of the slave ship, 
brought to America, and there sold into slavery Tike beasts of 
burden. Your people toiled for long years in the develop- 
ment of a country, in the blessings of which they had no 
share. When the moral sense of the country was aroused, 
and the agitation against slaveiy arose, the War was inev- 
itable, it had to be. God's balances of right and wrong for- 
ever hang across the skies. In those balances our country 
was weighed and found wanting. It was written that every 
groan from the breast of a slave should find an echoing 
response in the groans of a nation's misery; that every drop 
of blood that trickled from the back of a slave, under the 
lash, was to be weighed against the richest and most precious 
blood of the nation ; that every cry of the slave mother, 
mourning for her lost child, should be answered back by 
the cry of other mothers, mourning for their children dead 
upon the field of battle; and that every dollar made in the 
slave traffic should be lost in the devastation of a great war. 
Such was the penalty that this nation paid for the wrong 
done your race. 

But now that slavery is gone, that the shackles have been 
removed from your limbs, and you are free, what have you 
done with your liberty, for yourselves, for your children, and 
for your country? It is true, you are circumscribed in your 
eiforts by social limitations, by racial prejudices and by tra- 



THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 105 

ditions of the past. But the question remains, How have 
you used the liberty you have? Have you made the best of 
the opportunities given you, limited as they are? These 
questions everyone of you should ask of himself; they can 
only be answered by the voice of your own conscience. These 
questions are applicable to the white man also, but there are 
special reasons why they should be addressed to the colored 
man. The conditions under which he lives are peculiar. He 
is more dependent on himself; he has to make the greatest 
struggle to keep a hold on life. 

I know that much allowance must be made for the negro. 
He has more to contend with, more to endure, and the longest 
and hardest hill to climb. His ancestors were slaves. They 
never had to care for themselves. Their clothing and shelter 
were provided by their masters. They were not trained to 
depend on themselves. They were not educated to assume 
any responsibility. And suddenly, in the convulsions of a 
great war, they found themselves free, but forced to care for 
themselves. They were like children, turned loose in a desert, 
they did not know what to do or where to go. 

They made, I think, one serious mistake. Too many of 
them drifted into the cities. They gathered there in large 
numbers. Untrained and inexperienced, they were exposed 
to the corrupting influence of poverty and all of its attendant 
vices. I think it would have been better had they remained 
in the country. The country, with its green fields and for- 
ests, its babbling brooks, its warm sunshine and pure air, is 
the best place for any man, white or black, but especially 
for the black man. The city is attractive. It allures men 
of all races from the farm or the village. But the struggle 
for existence is harder in the city ; the temptations are greater, 
and vice is more seductive and destructive. It is a serious 
question for your race to consider whether you shall adopt 
the virtues of the white man, making them a part of your life, 
or whether you will yield to the white man 's vices which poison 
the blood, vitiate character, and which, in the end, will not only 
destroy individuals but will impair the moral force of the 
entire race. It must always be remembered that the future 



106 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

of any race depends upon the life and character of its indi- 
vidual members. You have much to contend with, and it 
may be natural for you to go in the direction in which you 
find the least resistance. But the greater the obstacles to 
one's advancement, the greater is the effort to be made to 
overcome them. Despite what your enemies say, it is un- 
doubtedly true that the negro has in his nature, elements of 
character upon which to build a higher and better life. This 
was displayed by him in the Civil War. It was the liberty 
of the slave that was at stake for which this terrible game 
of war was played. The slave knew it; perhaps in a dim 
and uncertain way, but he knew it. Nevertheless, throughout 
that great struggle the master expressed the greatest con- 
fidence in the slave. The master went to the War, and the 
slave remained at home and took care of his master's family 
and property. Herein was an expression of trust which, 
judged by the ordinary laws of human nature, was really 
wonderful. 

Sometimes the slave followed the master to the battlefield, 
waited on him, and took care of him. Oftentimes, when 
the master was killed or wounded, it was the slave who 
crawled amid the dead and dying, amid the storm of shot 
and shell, until he found the stricken body and carried it 
away in his arms. No race, under the most trying circum- 
stances, ever manifested greater kindness of heart and faith- 
fulness, than was shown by the slave in the Civil War. 

A Southern gentleman, an ex-Confederate soldier, told me 
not long ago of an incident in his own family history. When 
the Union army advanced into the neighborhood where a rela- 
tive lived, the latter fled further south. He had a quantity of 
gold coin, too heavy to carry, and he had no safe place wherein 
to deposit it. He called one of his slaves to him, gave him 
the gold, told him to bury it, and to guard it until the mas- 
ter's return. The amount was large — some twenty thousand 
dollars. The slave took the money and buried it in a secret 
place. The Union army came in. The slave was free to 
go where he pleased. He could have taken the money and 
fled. But he remained true to the trust reposed in him. 



THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 107 

He recognized it as a trust ; it appealed to his sense of honor 
and duty ; he would not prove false. He remained there and 
looked after his master's family. When the War was over 
the master returned. He called upon the slave for the money. 
The latter responded by taking a shovel and guiding the master 
to a remote place in a forest, where the money was found and 
delivered. I tell you, a race which breeds men of such fidelity 
to a trust and of such honesty of character as this black man 
showed, has those qualities out of which good and useful 
citizenship can be made. 

It is because of the limitations put upon you, because of 
the hostility and prejudice with which you have to contend, 
that I call attention to the possibilities you have for good 
citizenship and for a growing influence in the life of the 
world. And for your sake, for your children's sake, and for 
the future of your race, I admonish you to hold to those 
influences which make men honest, industrious, faithful to 
duty, and which make character. In this way, you will make 
yourselves respected by even those who oppose you. 

Let me say further, every vicious, evil-minded negro is an 
enemy to your race. Men who go wrong, who gamble, drink, 
and commit theft, who commit those grosser crimes which 
excite mobs, are your enemies. They do you infinite harm, 
because the blame is imposed upon the race. You above all 
others ought to stand for law and order, for the honor of 
your people ; and you ought not to encourage, protect or 
shield these men who injure society and bring discredit upon 
your race. 

Do not be misled by polities or by the art of the politician. 
I sometimes think a mistake was made right after the War 
in giving the ballot to the negro too soon. He was not ready 
for it. He had been kept in subjection, in ignorance and pov- 
erty for so long a time, that he did not know how to use 
the liberty that came to him so suddenly. He did not under- 
stand the use of the ballot or the responsibilities of citizenship. 
He became the unwilling tool of an unscrupulous class of 
politicians called "carpet baggers," who used him for their 
own selfish purposes. The result was a bitter racial war, 



108 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

which has retarded the advancement of the negro in the 
South, and has resulted in depriving him of the ballot. 

In this State you have the right to vote, but I put the 
question to you. How do you use the right? Do you always 
use it for the best interest of society and for the elevation 
of the standard of citizenship? Or do you throw the ballot 
away, or use it indifferently, or use it so as to degrade it and 
injure society and weaken the moral force of your own peo- 
ple ? Do you realize what the ballot has cost, how many lives 
have been sacrificed, how much blood and tears have been 
shed, on the battlefield and on the scaffold, through long years 
of strife and stniggle, in order that men might have the 
privilege of the ballot? It requires little imagination to 
enable one to see that the ballot is red with blood and wet 
with tears, which were shed that you and I might have it. 
Shall we sell it for a dollar, for a drink of beer? Shall we 
give it away, or shall we consider it a priceless heritage, and 
use it only for the advancement of society, and for the infu- 
sion of the spirit of righteousness in the hearts of the people, 
both white and black ? 

Do not trouble yourselves too much about politics. Don't 
be discouraged if you are not allowed to hold office. Do 
not be discouraged if j'ou are oftentimes made the victims 
of racial hatred and jealousy. Do not grow faint hearted. 
There are many other ways in which you can work for the 
upbuilding of your race. I do not know what you think of 
Booker T. Washington; but, if you have read his story 
"Up from Slavery," you have read a story more thrilling 
than anything in fiction. When the War was going on he 
was a little "pickaninny," living in a cabin without floors or 
windows, in Virginia. When the War closed, he, with others, 
was cast adrift to make his own way. He was without 
friends, influence or education. He belonged to a race much 
hated in the part of the country in which he lived. But he 
was not discouraged. He worked wherever he found work to 
do. He worked in coal mines, as a house servant, and in the 
fields. He was industrious, sober, and faithful. Then the 
longing came to him for an education. He started for the 



THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 109 

Hampton Institute. He walked all the way, over mountains 
and plains, by day and by night. He worked for food; he 
slept in the fields, in barns, and under railroad platforms. 
He finally arrived at Hampton. He worked his way through 
college, and then went out into the heart of the South and 
commenced his great work of education. He is to-day not 
only a great teacher, but one of the greatest orators in the 
United States, barring none. His life, his struggles, and his 
triumphs should be an encouragement to all of you. The de- 
votion to duty, the high resolve, the industry, which charac- 
terize his life, should be considered as evidence of the pos- 
sibilities of your race. 

Let honesty, industry, and economy be your watchwords. 
Try to get ahead in the material things of life. When you 
can go to a bank and borrow money on your own note, when 
you own and manage farms, when your word is as good as 
the white man's bond, then you will have achieved a place 
in the community in which you live, which commands confi- 
dence, respect, and good treatment. Life will then be easier, 
justice will be more free, and the promise of the future will 
be greater. 

The message I bring to you is to be true to those high 
ideals by which the white man has been brought from bar- 
barism to civilization. I know there is a large class of white 
men who do not live up to this standard. But they are in 
the minority. The hearts of the majority of this great people 
are true to high convictions of duty. You can advance in 
the same line of progress by devotion to the same ideals. 
The hope of your race, as I see it, is in industry, economy, 
and honesty. 

To-day we celebrate the birth of Abraham Lincoln. Keep 
his memory sacred in your hearts. Devote yourselves to the 
study of the principles which controlled his life. Remember 
his great career. He was born in a log cabin, reared in 
poverty, and dedicated to toil. He spent his early years 
toiling in the forest, in the fields, on the flat-boat, in the 
country store, and finally he became a great political leader. 
By birth and ancestry he belonged to the poorer classes 



110 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

of the South. But he raised himself from the lowest level 
to the highest pinnacle of fame. Though long since dead, 
men still speak of him as one of deathless memory. His life, 
his struggles, and triumphs, serve as a lesson to us all. 

I may have said some things you do not like. But, remem- 
ber, I speak from the heart, with an interest in your race, 
with a hope for its future, and with a desire to see you have 
better opportunities for self-development. 

You are part of this nation ; you cannot be ignored in the 
consideration of its future. But your place in the national 
life is more or less in dispute. It presents what is called 
a "problem"; it involves your political, economic, and social 
rights, your duties and responsibilities. It is a problem 
which will take time to solve. I want to see it solved on 
right lines, in a spirit of justice, and in the interest of both 
races. The responsibility rests in part upon you. Will you 
help to solve the problem? You can only do it by bringing 
your race up to the high standards of citizenship. Will you 
prove to the white race that you have virtues which make 
you worthy of trust and confidence ? Let us all help to bring 
to the solution of this and all other problems the highest 
measure of good sense, and let us cultivate a high resolve to 
do our duty as God gives us light to see it. Such is the mes- 
sage I bring you. Such is the hope I have for you. 



THE OTHER SIDE OF THE QUESTION 
(A reply to the Speech of Hon. W. J. Calhoun) 

REV. A. J. CAREY 

I COULD not help feeling as I listened to the burning 
words of eloquence as they fell from the lips of Judge 
Calhoun, that if all the negroes in the Civil War had been 
as the one, described by the Judge, who made his way to his 
wounded master and brought him back to home and slavery, 
we would have been unworthy a part in the celebration of 
this splendid week. But when I looked on my right, as I 
sat here to-night, and saw those old veterans, who were a part 
and parcel of that two hundred thousand black men who 
answered to the call of Father Abraham, I felt in my 
heart of hearts we have just right to be here. Ah, my 
friends, I want our good Judge to see the other side of the 
question. "When thirteen stars from yonder flag were falling 
into the dust of secession two hundred thousand negro sol- 
diers caught them on the points of bristling bayonets, pinned 
them back in the folds of Old Glory, sealed them with their 
blood, singing meanwhile, — 

"John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave, 
But his soul goes marching on." 

And when the good Judge speaks of the ballot — Ah, Judge, 
had you lived where I lived, had you lived in that Southland 
yonder where I was born and reared, had you seen a helpless 
people treated as my people were, thrown into the conflict 
with no weapon of defence, you would have said, "Though 
the Fifteenth Amendment seem a mistake, give it a trial and 
let the negro have the ballot. It is his only weapon of de- 
fence, his only means of protection against injustice and 
oppression." 

It may be that some of us have proven unworthy. It may 

111 



112 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

be that some have bartered their ballot for money or beer. 
But, sir, more contemptible, more blamable in the sight of 
honest men and in the sight of God, than the black man who 
sells his ballot, is the white man who purchases or causes him 
to sell it. 

One word, and I am done. When the good Judge speaks 
of black men owning property and being able to give their 
negotiable notes to the bank, I rejoice that in the State in 
which I was born, the old State of Georgia, negroes pay taxes 
to-day on twenty-five million dollars' worth of real estate and 
personal property. And in that self-same State, some of the 
very homes in which their former masters lived are now owned 
by those black ex-slaves, many of whom have given their 
former masters bread, since the Emancipation Proclamation 
set them free. 

What is true in Georgia, is true in Alabama, true in Ten- 
nessee, true in Texas, proportionately true in every State of 
the South, and under God we are beginning to make it true 
even in grand old Illinois, for here our people have begun 
the purchasing of many homes. Yes, Judge, in all that makes 
for righteousness, in all that makes for that which is best for 
the American people, these black men and these black women 
have consecrated themselves heart and soul to God and his 
truth, and to their task. We will help you make this nation 
the mightiest nation on the globe, or we will report to God 
the reason why. 



THE CATHEDRAL UTTERANCE OF LINCOLN 

DR. CHARLES J. LITTLE 

ON the twentieth of March, 1811, two years after the birth 
of Abraham Lincoln, an enormous crowd gathered be- 
fore the Palace of the Tuileries in Paris at the booming of 
the cannon that announced the birth of an expected prince. 
As volley succeeded volley the suspense became unbearable, 
until the twenty-second report shook earth and sky, when this 
assurance that the child bom to Napoleon was the wished-for 
son, evoked from the impatient multitude shouts and screams 
of wild delight. The imperial babe w^as proclaimed immedi- 
ately the King of Rome, decorated with the grand Eagle of 
the Legion of Honor, wuth the great Cross of the Iron Crown, 
and with the Golden Fleece. The guns that told of his birth 
were repeated northward to the Russian frontier and south- 
ward to the straits of Gibraltar. Poets broke into obsequious 
songs; churches resounded with chants of praise; Paris 
brought to the child a magnificent silvered vessel, the emblem 
of the city ; the Senate and Council of State hailed in ecstatic 
strains "this new star which," they exclaimed, ''had risen on 
the horizon of France, and whose first gleams dispersed the 
smallest shadows remaining of the darkness of the future." 
One year later a portrait of this baby King of Rome, playing 
in his cradle with the sceptre of the Empire and the globe of 
the world, was shown by Napoleon to his staff as his army was 
approaching Moscow. ''But the hitherto un vanquished con- 
queror could not pluck to-morrow from the hands of the 
Eternal." Few and evil were the days appointed to the lad. 
When four years old a fugitive with his frightened mother 
and his treacherous uncle ; afterward a prisoner in the palace 
of his imperial grandfather; an uneducated or raisedueated 
8 113 



114 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

youth dying at twenty-one, his last entreaty, the bitter excla- 
mation, "Let me die in peace!" — finally a splendid funeral 
in Vienna, a tomb in the great cathedral, and a twilight song 
chanted by Victor Hugo to his memory. This completes the 
melancholy annals of the King of Rome, descendant of the 
Hapsburgs and Napoleon Bonaparte. 

How strange but how instructive the story of this imperial 
eaglet when contrasted with the childhood and the career of 
Abraham Lincoln ! No sound save the moaning of his mother 
greeted his coming to a rude Kentucky cabin. No poet sang 
his praises; no legislators prophesied his future splendor; no 
artist cared to limn his homely features; no famous father 
showed him to his comrades as the coming ruler of millions 
and the idol of posterity. But while the foredoomed offspring 
of Napoleon was watching the fountains in the gardens of 
his palace prison, the son of Nancy Lincoln was following his 
mother to her lonely grave in a wild region, among bears and 
untamed creatures. No private tutors shaped or spoiled his 
mind. No college made or marred his character. ' ' Somehow 
he learned to read and cipher"— that was all, "save what he 
picked up in after life under," as he termed it modestly, "the 
pressure of necessity." For this ungainly, dark-skinned, 
melancholy lad felt quite early the urging of a mightier force, 
a force compounded of intelligence and ambition, of the ability 
to think and the longing to achieve. 

America is opportunity indeed, but not for everybody. 
Many children were born in Kentucky in 1809, but only one 
Abraham Lincoln. Many settlers found their way to Indiana 
when the Territory became a State, but not many future 
statesmen ; many clerks handled the goods and chatted with 
the customers in the country stores of Illinois, but very few 
among them rose to eminence. 

Lincoln, the farm boy, the store clerk, the surveyor, became 
Lincoln the lawyer and Lincoln the statesman, not because 
of his environment and its difficulties, but because he saw and 
seized his opportunities. Defects he had indeed; defects of 
character and defects contracted from vulgar and mean sur- 
roundings; but he had great powers, together with a capacity 



THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 115 

for self-development and self-conquest, which is the secret of 
all enduring greatness. 

Abraham Lincoln was always nobler than his surroundings 
and wiser than his companions; but there has been in many 
places, and not seldom here in this great state to which his 
name and that of Grant have given imperishable lustre, a 
somewhat grudging recognition of his nobility and wisdom. 
His image has been obscured by the breath of men who thought 
that he was altogether such an one as themselves, and who 
fastened upon the defects of his massive nature as though 
they were the substance of his being ; men who were fain to 
magnify their own pettiness by creeping into some crevice of 
his character. 

You will permit me, therefore, to recall a paragraph from 
one of his early speeches, a paragraph that lives in my mind 
as the cathedral utterance of Abraham Lincoln, because I can 
never recall it without the vision of some mighty structure 
soaring upwards like the dome of St. Peter's or the spires of 
Cologne's beautiful temple into that ampler ether where a 
sublime human achievement is made glorious by the greeting 
of the radiant skies. 

Speaking of the slave power, he exclaimed : 

"Broken by it, I, too, may be; bow to it, I never will. The prob- 
ability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from 
the support of a cause which we deem to be just. It shall not deter 
me. If I ever feel the soul within me elevate and expand to those 
dimensions not wholly unworthy its Almighty Architect, it is when I 
contemplate the cause of my country deserted by all the world besides, 
and I, standing up boldly and alone and hurling defiance at her vic- 
torious oppressors. Here, without contemplating consequence, before 
high heaven, and in the face of the world, I swear eternal fidelity to. 
the just cause, as I deem it, of the land of my life^ my Liberty, and 
my love." 

Here is the key to the peculiar character of Abraham Lin- 
coln. His soul was capable of infinite expansion; and under 
the inspiration of great opportunity and tremendous respon- 
sibility his soul did expand to dimensions not wholly unworthy 
of its Almighty Architect ; but it was a soul whose final maj- 
esty, whose ultimate harmonious proportions were never quite 



116 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

comprehended by men who boasted that they, too, were hewn 
from the same rough quarry and who flattered themselves that 
they, too, might have expanded to the same grandeur. 

Yet, even these could not hide the fact that Lincoln had been 
always a being apart— friendly, sociable, kindly, helpful ; but 
singularly, although not offensively, unlike his neighbors. The 
strength of a giant was the servant of *'a heart as big as his 
arms were long." Like Garibaldi, the hero of United Italy, 
he could not bear the sight or sound of needless suffering. 
Bigger and stronger than any of his companions, he was the 
gentlest of them all. But the quality of his mind was wholly 
different from theirs; indeed it was of a quality exceedingly 
rare in the whole world. Lincoln had marvellous mental eye- 
sight. He looked not so much at things as into them. His 
vision was not only accurate, but penetrating. It was a vision 
unblurred by his own hasty fancies or his own wishes; and a 
vision undimmed by prevalent misstatements or current mis- 
conceptions; a vision never long perturbed by the sophistries 
of men skilled to make **the worse appear the better reason." 

Referring once to the declaration of Galileo that a ball 
dropped and a ball shot from the mouth of a cannon would 
strike the ground at the same instant, Lincoln said that 
long before he knew the reasons for it, it seemed to him that 
it must be so. Like Galileo, he saw the thing before and not 
merely after it was proved. He saw that the downward pull 
on both balls must be the same, and that the outward drive 
of the one had nothing whatever to do with the time of its 
fall. We may indeed wonder what might have been his career, 
if, like Michael Faraday, he had first read books of science 
instead of the Revised Statutes of Illinois or the Commentaries 
of Blackstone that he found in a pile of rubbish. Fate de- 
creed, however, that this rare quality of penetrative vision 
should be applied to law and to statecraft — especially to the 
problems then challenging the thought of the American people. 
This vision, moreover, was not only penetrative; it was pro- 
phetic. He could foresee consequences as distinctly as he 
could discern realities. It was not pure guessing, when he 
exclaimed, ' ' This government cannot endure permanently half 



- 2 




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Facsimile of Manuscript Tribute from Dr. ('harles J. Little, 
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THE CHICAGO COxMMEMORATION 117 

free and half slave. ' ' It was a prediction derived from steady 
and consecutive vision. For genuine logic, like the logic of 
Euclid which fascinated him, is, after all, a continuous seeing. 
Given the elements of a situation, the mind watches them as 
consequence follows consequence in sure and certain revelation. 
Never to befool oneself about an actual situation and never 
to befool oneself in reasoning upon it — these are the bases of 
science, physical and political. And science is the modern 
almanac, the handbook of prediction. When men like Doug- 
las w^ere attempting to manipulate and thwart the laws of 
God which determine national destiny, Abraham Lincoln was 
humbly studying them in the spirit of Galileo and of Francis 
Bacon. 

Daniel Webster once declared that it is wholly unnecessary 
to re-enact the laws of God. The saying, strictly construed, 
is true enough, but the implications of it, as Lincoln saw, 
are utterly false. We need not, indeed, re-enact the laws of 
God, but our statutes, if they shall work benefit and not 
disaster, must recognize and conform to them. The laws of 
God, left to themselves, leave us in impotence, and exposed to 
hunger, disease and disaster. All our mastery of the physical 
world depends upon our actively using, not upon our pas- 
sively submitting to, the laws of the material universe. In 
this sense every flying locomotive is a re-enactment of the laws 
of God; so is every telescope that opens to mortal vision the 
splendors of immensity, and every microscope with which we 
track to their hiding places the mysteries of life and death. 
So is every temple that we rear, every bridge that we build, 
every steamship that we construct, every mill that we erect, 
and every machine into which we conduct the energy of steam 
or electricity. The whole progress of civilized man may be 
measured by the extent to which he has learned in his activi- 
ties to obey and to employ the laws of God. So, too, in the 
political world, the great structures that we call common- 
wealths must, in this sense, be re-enactments of eternal prin- 
ciples. If they are to be beneficent and not malignant, those 
who create and control them must learn the laws by which 
alone benign results can be obtained. Constitutions can en- 



118 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

dure and statutes increase the welfare of the people only as 
they realize and do not contravene the principles of righteous- 
ness and progress. Penetrating to this simple but tremendous 
truth, Lincoln obtained his vision of the future ; his prophetic 
gaze swept the political horizon and discerned the inevitable. 
And this foresight was both profound and far-reaching. In 
learned information his horizon might be termed a narrow 
one ; but in his grasp of principles and of their ultimate and 
universal consequences he was broader and deeper than any 
statesman of his age. The only time I ever saw him was at 
the flag-raising in Philadelphia, on Washington 's birthday, in 
1861. I could not hear his voice, so great was the intervening 
crowd, but the words that I could not hear I have read and 
pondered often since : 

"I never have had a feeling politically," said the predestined martyr 
for whom assassins even then were lying in wait, "that did not spring 
from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Independence . . . 
that sentiment . . . which gave liberty not alone to the people of 
this country, but hope to all the world, for all future time. It was 
that which gave promise that in due time the weights would be lifted 
from the shoulders of all men, and that all should have an equal chance. 
Now, my friends, can this country be saved on that basis? ... If 
it cannot be saved without giving up that principle, I was about to 
say I would rather be assassinated on this spot than surrender it." 

If this be narrowness of vision, then may God contract the 
eyes of American statesmen to a similar horizon ! 

Such was the mind of Abraham Lincoln — a mind that grav- 
itated gladly to the truth of things; a mind that loved light 
and hated darkness; a mind that found rest only in eternal 
principles, and inspiration in prophetic visions and exalted 
political ideals. 

Possibly under different surroundings he might have be- 
come a renowned scientist; more probably his radiant and 
steady intellect, united to his great heart would have made 
him even under other conditions a supreme statesman. For 
the scientist seeks chiefly for causes and is satisfied to find 
and to show them ; if he concerns himself for beneficent re- 
sults, as he often does, these are not his principal quest. 



THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 119 

He searches for the seeds of things and delights to see them 
grow. The statesman, on the other hand, seeks first, last, and 
always the welfare of the people. And Lincoln loved the 
people, craving their happiness and hating oppression even 
when it assumed the form of law. Monarchs and oligarchs 
strive mainly to perpetuate their privileges and to increase 
their power ; even in Republics there be those who usurp free 
institutions in order to enlarge their wealth and to entrench 
their tyranny. Lincoln perceived too clearly and felt too 
keenly the burdens of the common man, ever to become the 
active or the passive instrument of any power that would 
abridge his liberties or diminish the opportunities of his chil- 
dren. The Declaration of Independence, so often mentioned 
in his speeches, he recognized as the embodiment of the prin- 
ciples that determine all political progress. Human govern- 
ments are sanctioned and favored by Almighty God, so long, 
and so long only, as they promote the welfare of the people 
and further the progress of mankind. Directly they become 
instruments of oppression, or strongholds of tyranny, they 
provoke the judgments which are righteous altogether, when 
"the wealth piled up by unrequited toil" shall be sunk in the 
divine wrath "and every drop of blood drawn with the lash 
shall be paid by another drawn with the sword. ' ' 

And he recognized himself, humbly and gladly, as a prod- 
uct of the principles that he defended. Freedom had made 
it possible for his own soul to expand to dimensions not un- 
worthy of its Almighty Architect. One needs only to read 
the story of modem Italy, of her exiles and her patriots dying 
in dungeons and upon the scaffold, to see how impossible 
would have been such a career under the Italian skies. It is 
enough to make one weep tears of blood to know the tremen- 
dous price that the descendants of Dante and of Galileo paid 
for unity and liberty. And her Garibaldi grew strong in the 
shelter of our Declaration of Independence. But a poor lad 
like Abraham Lincoln, even though capable of penetrative, 
prophetic, and profound vision — a poor lad, awkward in body, 
homely in features, and unaggressive in disposition, with no 
capital but his strong arms, his big heart, and his luminous 



120 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

brain — could expand to proportions worthy of his divine 
Creator only in the bracing air of freedom and social equality. 
Nay, he could not have reached these splendid dimensions 
except in a free State of the American Union — not even in 
the Kentucky of Henry Clay, or in the Virginia that had 
ceased to think the thoughts of Thomas Jefferson. 

Combined with these rare qualities of mind, Lincoln pos- 
sessed a gift of exact expression that bordered on the mar- 
velous. His fidelity of speech matched his fidelity of vision. 
He could say what he saw and make others see what he said. 
' ' Well ! Speed ! I 'm moved ! " he exclaimed with laconic 
humor after carrying his saddle-bags upstairs to his friend's 
room. "Judge Douglas has the high distinction of never 
having said, either that slavery is right, or that slavery is 
wrong; almost everybody else says one or the other, but the 
Judge never does." Such was the sentence with which he 
transfixed his dodging rival before the astonished people of 
Illinois. 

"Has Douglas the exclusive right to be on all sides of all 
questions?" he demanded with mock surprise. "Until Judge 
Douglas gives a better reason than he has offered against the 
evidence in this case, I suggest to him it will not avail at all 
that he swells himself up, takes on dignity, and calls people 
liars. Would you prove a proposition in Euclid false by 
calling Euclid a liar?" This was his grim reply to his cun- 
ning antagonist trying to convert a question of logic into a 
question of veracity. 

To a man exclaiming, "I believe in God Almighty and in 
Abraham Lincoln," he gave the instant and inimitable re- 
joinder, "You 're more than half right!" And what could 
surpass the laconic severity of his telegram to General Mc- 
Clellan, "I have just read your despatch about sore-tongued 
and fatigued horses. Will you pardon me for asking what the 
horses of your army have done since the battle of Antietam, 
that fatigues anything?" 

"If one man enslaves another, no third man has the right 
to object!" Into those thirteen words he distilled the malig- 
nant meaning of the Dred Scott decision. 



THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 121 

"The central idea of secession is the essence of anarchy" — 
such is the terse statement of the First Inaugural, followed by 
a demonstration as lucid as the proposition. 

Galileo used to say that God had written the laws of nature 
in geometrical characters; Lincoln believed that political 
principles could be stated with geometrical clearness, and he 
confronted his adversaries whenever great issues were in- 
volved, not by denunciation but by illumination. If he could 
not show them, he could at least show other people just where 
they stood and just what they meant. 

It is to the enduring honor of the people of Illinois that 
they were large enough to recognize the expanding dimensions 
of this strong soul ; that when this clear-eyed defender of 
liberty and union appeared among them their sight was sharp 
enough to see above him the beckoning hand of Destiny. How 
long is the tradition to endure that handsome presence and 
sonorous voice, swollen periods, glittering platitudes, reckless 
assertions, delusive epigrams, and the sneers of the sophist 
suffice for popular leadership ? They suffice only when the 
people are unworthy of great statesmen, or when inferior and 
selfish leaders are unopposed by clear thinking, plain speaking, 
and intrepid action. They suffice never when a soul expanded 
by the inspiration of great principles grapples with a spirit 
so swollen and heated with ambition that it has grown indif- 
ferent to the dignity of its Almighty Architect. Douglas was 
skilled in the arts of plausible address, adroit, audacious, 
evasive, self-assertive, denunciatory ; full of the forms of logic, 
yet not too careful of the truth. How shrivelled and shrunken 
he appeared when illuminated by the ever expanding mind of 
his conqueror! Stripped of his pride, of his self-delusions, 
of the garments of party leadership for which he had surren- 
dered the cardinal principles of democracy, how small the 
remnant looked! His antagonist's soul had expanded to a 
temple of light ; his own brain had dwindled to a tabernacle 
of bewildering inconsistencies. "He bargained with us and 
then under the stress of a local election his knees gave way; 
his whole person trembled. ' ' Such was the railing accusation 
in 1860 of his accuser and fellow bargainer, 'Judah P. Benja- 



122 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

min. How the accusation degrades them both, even after 
more than forty years, "He bargained with us and then be- 
trayed us!" 

But let us who are assembled here, so near the spot where 
the dying Douglas gave his parting injunction to his sons, 
"Defend the Constitution and obey the laws," remember to 
be just. The charge of Benjamin drips with the bitterness 
of disappointment and the hatred of a vanquished faction. 
There was probably no bargain and no betrayal, but as often 
happens in diplomacy and in political struggles, each faction 
tried to beat the other and both succeeded. Let us remember, 
too, the brief but glorious period in which the defeated Doug- 
las, forgetting the past with patriotic magnanimity, rallied 
promptly and boldly to the support of his former rival, de- 
claring to the whole country that there were left two parties 
only — the party for, and the party against the Union — thus, 
like a glorious but beclouded sun, emerging from a darkening 
storm to flood the horizon with the last rays of his powerful 
and loyal spirit. 

Not Lincoln's mind alone expanded to dimensions worthy 
of its Almighty Architect, but his whole being took on majesty 
as he assumed responsibilities and set about a task which to 
him seemed even greater than that of "Washington. His en- 
tire administration was a protracted magnanimity. He was 
great in his forbearance as he was great in his performance. 
Often tempted to use his strength against men who, like 
Greeley, assumed an impatient and dictatorial tone ; his en- 
durance strained to the breaking point by schemers and place- 
seekers and the cormorants that batten and fatten in war times 
upon the miseries of the people; peering anxiously into the 
skies above him for some token of hope dropped from the 
hand of God; the Lincoln that once carried the village post- 
ofifice in his hat bore the destinies of millions upon his mighty 
heart and expanded to the stature of the suffering saviour of 
the nation. He mastered his Cabinet with serene self-control ; 
he sustained with matchless generosity the successive com- 
manders of the several armies. Slow to change but swift to 
praise, with patient vigilance he studied the movements of 



THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 12S 

the public mind, waiting for it to become the footstool of his 
great purpose of emancipation, while with the diplomatic skill 
of an imperturbable wisdom, he averted the perils of a foreign 
war. 

Carl Schurz, in his ' ' Reminiscences, ' ' tells us that in 1864 : 

"It was publicly said that Mr. Lincoln had only one steadfast friend 
in the Lower House of Congress and few more in the Senate. 'They 
urge me,' he said to Schurz, 'with almost violent language to withdraw 
from the contest, although I have been unanimously nominated, in 
order to make room for a better man. I wish I could. Perhaps some 
other man might do the business better than I. But I am here and 
the better man is not here. And if I should step aside to make room 
for him, it is not at all sure — perhaps not even probable — that he 
would get here. It is much more likely that the factions opposed to 
me would fall to fighting among themselves, and that they would get 
a man whom most of them would not want. God knows I have at 
least tried very hard to do my duty, to do right to everybody and 
wrong to nobody. Have the men who accuse me of a lust for power 
and of doing unscrupulous things to keep myself in office thought of 
the common cause when trying to break me down? I hope they have." 
— Meanwhile, the dusk of evening had set in and when the room was 
lighted, I thought I saw his sad eyes moist and his rugged features 
working strangely, as if under a very strong and painful emotion." 

Oh, most wonderful and all-wise Congress, so ready always 
to proclaim its own integrity and spotless virtue ! Oh, long- 
suffering leader of the people, writhing from the taunts and 
follies of congressional pharisees and disappointed seekers 
after the spoils of office and the spoils of war ! 

But let me recall two dates that illuminate each other won- 
derfully, disclosing the rare quality of Lincoln's magnanimity. 
On the fifth of August, 1864, when his re-election seemed 
doubtful and almost hopeless to himself, there appeared in 
The New York Tribune a three-columned manifesto signed by 
Benjamin F. AVade and H. Winter Davis, two notable leaders 
of the Republican Party. They had read, "without surprise 
but not without indignation, the Proclamation of July 8. A 
more studied outrage on the legislative authority of the peo- 
ple," they continued, "has never been perpetrated." They 
sneeringly inquired "upon what do the President's hopes of 
abolishing slavery throughout the nation rest ? " If he wishes 



124 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

the support of Congress he must confine himself to his execu- 
tive duties, and they conclude with ill-concealed malignity, 
"the supporters of the government should consider the remedy 
for these usurpations, and having found it, fearlessly execute 
it. " White as my hair has grown, there is blood enough in my 
heart to heat it with anger, even now, as I recall the gloomy 
August day of 1864 on which I first read these cruel words. 
They ought, as we knew long since, never to have been written. 
They were wrong, utterly wrong, and it was unspeakably 
mean to publish them when the destiny of the country was 
trembling in the balance. 

Contrast now these self-righteous statesmen — for statesmen 
they were of no small stature — with the man that they assailed. 
They were imperilling the nation to satisfy their wounded 
pride. Lincoln 's one thought was to save, to save, to save the 
Union. 

On the twenty-third of August he gave to the members of 
his Cabinet, sealed, to be opened only after the election, the 
following memorandum : 

"This morningj as for some days past, it seems exceedingly probable 
that this administration will not be reelected. Then it will be my 
duty to so cooperate with the President-elect as to save the Union 
between the election and the inauguration; as he will have secured his 
election on such groiud that he cannot possibly save it afterward." 

0, gloriously expanded soul ! O, temple of the Living God 
not unworthy of its Almighty Architect ! Happy the people 
whose destinies, in the hour of impending disaster, are en- 
trusted to a heart so big, a mind so clear, a soul so patient and 
a will so unyielding! 

Just forty-eight years ago yesterday, Abraham Lincoln 
parted from his friends and neighbors, "not knowing," he 
said, "when or whether ever I may return, with a task 
before me greater than that which rested upon Washington." 
And then he added: "Without the assistance of that Divine 
Being who ever attended him, I cannot succeed. With that 
assistance, I cannot fail." He never returned; only the shat- 
tered tenement of him was given back to the people of Spring- 
field. The man himself — his mind, his magnanimous soul, his 



THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 125 

patient, resolute, indomitable will, the indestructible Abraham 
Lincoln — had entered into the hearts of his countrymen and 
into the memory of the civilized world, there to abide, an 
energy for political righteousness, so long as freedom and 
fraternity remain embla2:oned upon the banners of human 
progress. 

Remembering this humble reference to "the assistance of 
that Divine Being who ever attended" Washington, is it too 
much to say that Abraham Lincoln's soul expanded until it 
became a temple for Almighty God to dwell in? Much has 
been written, and for the most part foolishly, about the re- 
ligion of this martyred man. There be those who are ready 
to affirm his piety with solemn oaths, and those also who deny 
it most profanely. Let us consider the matter calmly and 
with candor. The enduring elements of piety, certainly the 
essentials of Christian piety, are these — on the one hand, an 
unconquerable belief in the righteousness of God, united with 
a steady desire to know and obey his will ; on the other hand, 
an unfaltering belief in sacrifice for others as the only witness 
of the faith that works by love. Touching these essentials, 
the prophets of all ages are agreed, Jew and Gentile, Catholic 
and Protestant, orthodox and heterodox. Tried by this stand- 
ard, Lincoln will appear for all time in word and in deed 
as a ruler clothed with the beauty of rare and lustrous good- 
ness. And note carefully how his soul "expanded to dimen- 
sions worthy of his Almighty Architect." In 1851, unable 
to be present with his dying father, he wrote, — 

. . . "tell him to remember to call upon and confide in our great and 
good and merciful Maker, who will not turn away from him in any 
extremity. He notes the fall of a sparrow, and numbers the hairs of 
our heads, and he will not forget the dying man who puts his trust 
in him." 

Writing to his friend Speed, then anxious about the health 
of his wife, he tells him with a courage possible only to per- 
fect friendship : 

"These horrid doubts of her affection for you can be forever removed, 
and I almost feel that the Almighty has sent your present aflBiction 
expressly for that object." 



126 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Writing of Jefferson's principles, he declared, "Those who 
deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves, and, 
under a just God, cannot long retain it." To Mrs. Gurney 
he replied in 1862 : 

"In the very responsible position in which I happen to be placed, 
being a humble instrument in the hands of our Heavenly Father, as 
I am, and as we all are, to work out his great purposes, I have desired 
that all my works and acts may be according to His will, and that it 
might be so, I have sought His aid; but if, after endeavoring to do my 
best in the light which He affords me, I find my efforts fail, I must 
believe that for some purpose unknown to me, He wills it otherwise." 

The second day succeeding, he wrote :- 

"The will of God prevails. In great contests each party claims to act 
in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be, 
wrong. God cannot be for and against the same thing at the same 
time. In the present Civil War it is quite possible that God's purpose 
is something different from the purpose of either party, and yet the 
human instrumentalities, working just as they do, are of the best 
adaptation to effect His purpose. I am almost ready to say that this 
is probably true; that God wills this contest, and wills that it shall not 
end yet." 

To the preachers exhorting him "to get God on his side," 
he replied with sublime rebuke that he was trying to get on 
God's side. Upon his Emancipation Proclamation he invoked 
the considerate judgment of mankind and the gracious favor 
of Almighty God. To the workingmen of Manchester, Eng- 
land, he wrote that "their decisive utterances under the trying 
circumstances were an instance of Christian heroism not sur- 
passed in any age or in any country." "Let us," he says, 
in another letter, "diligently apply the means for a speedy, 
final triumph, never doubting that a just God in His own 
good time, will give us the rightful result." "Under God" 
is the phrase that gleams from the final sentence in the Gettys- 
burg Address. "Duly grateful to Almighty God for having 
directed my countrymen to a right conclusion" — so he spoke 
of his second election — "it adds nothing to my satisfaction 
that any other man may be disappointed or pained by the 
result." And to the widow whose five sons died gloriously 
on the field of battle, he wrote : 



THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 127 

"I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your 
bereavement and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved 
and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so 
costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom." 

Nor did he serve God in words only. Not until the books 
of the Recording Angel shall be opened can we know the 
vigils, the agonies of this sympathetic heart and tireless mind. 
A man is what he is when alone. And in the solemn agonies 
of the intervals when politicians ceased to trouble him — his 
"Gethsemanes" he called them — prayer and meditation 
strengthened the high resolves that made it possible to fulfill 
his destiny. The fierce light that beats upon a living ruler 
blinds the observer's eyes. There is a nobler splendor, the 
light that follows after death, when falsehoods vanish and the 
truth comes forth; then the noble deeds performed in secret 
are openly proclaimed, and the motives that guided the hero 
in the crises of a sublime career shine out in perfect revelation ; 
then the walls of the inner chamber become transparent and 
the patriot wrestling with his God is seen upon his knees; 
then the clouds of criticism and of calumny are dispersed and 
the dawning judgment of posterity makes the path of the just 
to shine brighter and brighter unto the perfect day. So when 
Lincoln fell and shook the whole earth in his falling, that 
which he hoped for in his First Inaugural came to pass in 
larger meaning, for then indeed "the better angels of our 
nature" touched "the mystic chords of memory stretching 
from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart 
and hearthstone all over this broad land" of which this 
martyred President was God's chosen saviour and his ac- 
cepted sacrifice. Then the defeated sections even began to 
understand him and to embrace the form and figure of his 
mind. For the clouds which had obscured his image in the 
smoke of battle now faded away forever in the revelation of 
the meaning and motives of his conduct. 

No wonder, therefore, that his final utterances fall upon us 
with such benignity; that they seem more like the solemn 
music of infinite wisdom, and of infinite tenderness, than like 
the speech of mortal man. Did some still, small voice within 



128 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

him tell him that he, too, must be a \nctim of that partisan 
malignity which he had never shared and never fostered, that 
it would be a part of the punishment allotted to his people 
that he should be taken from them, even before the mighty- 
work was done and when as yet the need of him was very 
great? Brother Americans, we can repair that great loss only 
by entering into his spirit — not by statues of marble or bronze ; 
not, God help us, by reshaping the image of him imtil it dwin- 
dles into something like ourselves ; but by reshaping ourselves, 
our own souls, until they resemble his in its expansive power 
and ultimate nobility. 

If he could return from that bourne — from which, alas! 
the sages come not back to bring us wisdom — and frequent 
for a while the LTnion that he saved, how we should crowd 
around him ! What honors and what eulogies w^ould we not 
heap upon his transfigured form ! But after we had told him 
proudly of our territorial expansion, of our enormous wealth, 
of our splendid cities with their monumental buildings soaring 
towards the skies, of our flag, the symbol everywhere of a new 
world-power, of our great industries and our colossal fortunes, 
I think I hear him ask. But what of your men? Do their 
"souls expand to dimensions not unworthy of their Almighty 
Architect?" Are they inspired by principles that enlarge 
them to divine proportions? What about the Declaration of 
Independence? Are its principles denied and evaded as they 
used to be, or are they cherished and lived up to and exalted ? 
Are its ideas of free government applied, or are they being 
supplanted by those of class and caste and special privilege? 
Are you deceived by forms and sonorous phrases? By men 
who talk liberty and mean slavery? By men who adore the 
Constitution with their lips while their hearts are far from 
it? Do you fancy, I hear him ask, that because you call no 
man duke or king, you are, therefore, free and independent 
owners of yourselves? That because you offer no man openly 
a crown, you are sovereign citizens and self-governing com- 
munities? TLive you not yet learned the difference between 
the forms and the power of self-government? What about 
your worship of the Constitution? There were men in my 



THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 129 

time who adored it in their speech and who were yet doing 
their utmost to pervert it and to destroy its value. Have the 
enemies of social justice revived the old diabolical trick of 
interpreting it to defend oppression, or have the people mas- 
tered the divine art of reading it in the light of its sublime 
intention ''to form a more perfect Union and to promote the 
general welfare?" And what about your Legislatures, State 
and national ? Have they improved with your material prog- 
ress ? Are statutes carefully prepared and wisely considered ? 
Do they enact the laws of God or the will of some powerful 
interest ? Do they conform to immutable principles of politi- 
cal wisdom, or are hirelings and demagogues, misguided incom- 
petents and ambitious leaders, all wearing the livery of 
freedom, still telling you that you can evade and thwart and 
even nullify with impunity the principles of righteousness 
and equity? Have your political leaders eyes, and can they 
see? Have they brains and can they reason? Or do they 
darken counsel with a multitude of words ? Or shelter them- 
selves in cowardly silence? Have they principles for which 
they are ready to be assassinated, or have they principles only 
for platforms or parade or purchase ? 

Fixing upon us those piercing and melancholy eyes, he 
would warn us to learn wisdom in the time of our power and 
our wealth and our opportunity, lest we, too, provoke the 
righteous judgment of God upon ourselves and our posterity. 
He would remind us with pathetic solemnity that all the 
miseries of those terrible years in which he suffered for us 
came from judicial blindness, from the sacrifice of conscience 
and truth and freedom of speech, to avarice and ambition and 
the lust of power; and, lifting his hand to the "Almighty Ar- 
chitect" of his own expanded and transfigured soul, he would 
call upon us all "to here highly resolve that these dead shall 
not have died in vain ; that this nation . . . shall have a 
new birth of freedom ; and that government of the people, by 
the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. ' ' 



THE LITERARY SIDE OF LINCOLN 

DR. BERNARD J. CIGRAND 

WHEN the celebration of the hundredth anniversary of 
Aljraham Lincoln's birth was brought to the attention 
of our citizens, the idea of having other than a mere one-day 
celebration was thought impossible ; experience had taught the 
great dailies that a week's festival would result in failure. 
Some ventured to suggest that two days, if carefully planned, 
might meet with hearty response, and others referred to the 
hundredth anniversary of the inauguration of Washington as 
a safe guide in the Lincoln memorial occasion — the Washing- 
ton exercises lasting two days and only then having received 
impetus from exhibition of tokens and relics of the Revolution. 
Your presence here attests, after seven days' and nights' cele- 
bration, that the editors, too, can be mistaken and fail to ac- 
curately judge the public feeling. Hundreds of exercises dur- 
ing these hours have been rendered, and this august assem- 
blage, crowding every available space, standing throughout a 
long programme, showing no tedium after listening to a 
lengthy discourse — one long to be remembered for its brilliant 
and poetic elements — all this demonstrates in a most emphatic 
manner that the American love of patriotism, and the rev- 
erence for her distinguished heroes, has not faltered. No ! 
For this gathering witnesses that our regard for our founders 
and our esteem for our defenders grows stronger and more 
sturdy as the years creep on ; that we of this day have awak- 
ened to a higher appreciation of him who led the citizens on 
to victory ; that we more eagerly attest our love for the great 
loyalty of the adopted son of the Prairie State — Abraham 
Lincoln. 

Abraham Lincoln was so great, so noble, so grand, and so 
peerless a man that no man living, no matter how eloquent may 
be his tongue — no man living, no matter how gifted with the 

130 



THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 131 

pen — no artist, regardless of his dexterity with the brush — no 
sculptor, notwithstanding the genius of his handicraft — will 
be able to portray, describe, paint or chisel that life-likeness 
of Lincoln, which his diverse' and varied features and chang- 
ing countenance evolved. It is not in the power of this genera^ 
tion — it is not within the scope of a now living individual, to 
give the correct and proper face or figure of this Giant of the 
"West. Some day in the distant future, when we of this day are 
all gone, a child will be born — perhaps a boy, maybe a girl — 
who will brush away the prejudices of to-day's history, sweep 
aside the severe criticisms of the press, cast to the winds the 
jealousies of geographical sections, and with the unfailing lamp 
of Truth and the unerring pen of Justice bring from out 
of this mingled darkness a beautiful, clear, and truly living 
soul, of which the world in its calm judgment will proclaim, 
**It is our Lincoln!" 

All has not been told of Lincoln. There yet remain some 
few trifling elements untouched — here and there a fibre of 
his kindness and a stray thought of his literary evolution is 
left untold. While Shakespeare and the Bible were the liter- 
ary treasures of his frugal home, he also possessed a copy of 
Robert Burns — the poetic singer of nature — the "Longfellow 
of the British Isles"; but the volume which contributed patri- 
otic fervor to the youth Lincoln, a book which, while it may not 
be the equal of Shakespeare for English, nor of the Bible for 
philosophy, yet is without equal in the portrayal of our form 
of liberty and our understanding of government — the ''Life 
of General George Washington." Let me relate how Lincoln 
came to have this splendid work. A neighboring farmer had 
this great treasure, and Lincoln who had early read all the 
books within the meagrely supplied vicinity, gathered courage 
and asked the privilege of reading this copy. It was a Weems 's 
' * Washington. ' ' With what eagerness he mastered its pages — 
with what studiousness he learned the meanings of the difficult 
words! Our imagination only can supply this picture. It 
may be of interest to know that hardly had he finished the read- 
ing when, by an unforeseen element, the book was practically 
destroyed. The Lincoln home, as we all know, was a mere 



132 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

cabin — the naked earth as its floor — with a roof so poorly con- 
structed that both the sunshine and the rain visited the inmates 
at pleasure. Well, one night when young Abraham was asleep, 
a terrible rainstorm came on, and its watery elements 
dripped, drove, and drizzled through the roof and completely 
soaked the favorite volume, the AVeems's "Washington." 
When Abe arose he beheld what the storm had done, and 
with a heavy heart and eyes filled with tears he called to see 
the neighbor to explain how unforeseen and terrible the storm 
had been. When he came to the farmer he approached hira 
with fear and trembling, but with a candid manner related his 
sorrow. The farmer could well see that the storm had been 
severe; he also knew the frailty of the Lincoln cabin, and 
everywhere were the symbols of storm visitation. "But," 
said the farmer, "that is not the condition in which I gave 
you the book and I will not accept it in that ruined and 
dilapidated form." Immediately the embarrassed lad spoke 
up, "Well, what can I do to adjust this injury? In what way 
can I right this wrong, and how am I able to show you I mean 
to do right?" Abraham stood expectant. The farmer gazed 
into his tear-filled eyes, and then came the farmer's re- 
ply, "That book is worth six bits" — or seventy-five cents — 
"and if you will come and work for me for five or more 
days, you can keep the book ; it 's of no account to me in 
that ugly shape." Eagerly and with inspiration the youth 
spoke up, "Oh! you are so kind! You can have me a week 
or ten days. I will be very glad to repay you with my labor." 
The next day at sunrise young Abe stood at the farmer's door. 
He toiled for him four days from the break of day till dark- 
ness stopped his hands — eagerly, anxiously, and willingly. 
He worked, dreaming of his great and unexpected conquest. 
He would ovm that "Life of Washington." He could then 
follow more closely its true purpose. The farmer, seeing 
with what joyful and happy tenor he prosecuted the task, said, 
on the fourth night, "You have labored faithfully; you have 
done the work satisfactorily and you need not come any 
)nore. I feel you have fully paid for the 'Washington.' " 
The terrible storm had left in its wake a treasure, the "Life 



THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 133 

of Washington," and with renewed effort the student Lincoln 
resumed the happy opportunity of getting still closer to the 
great life of the leader of the colonial patriots. 

Another feature in the life of Lincoln which influenced 
his literary taste and shaped his destiny as a God-fearing cit- 
izen was the death of his beloved mother. While he was yet 
a lad of less than ten, she lay ill at the poorly furnished home 
— no doctor to minister to her needs, no neighbors to comfort 
or care for her. One day as the close of her life was ap- 
proaching, she called the dear son to her side and said, "Abra- 
ham, your mother will never rise from this cot. I am going 
to leave you. I am about to die." Clasping her slender 
arms about his childish form she continued, "Be kind to 
your little sister Sarah and take the Bible as your guide 
through life, and God will watch over your dear soul." The 
mother died and the stricken boy was beyond comforting. 
He sobbed, he cried, and in anguish resigned himself to the 
loss of this tender mother. He and his father went into the 
deep woods, chopped down a tree, and prepared a rude 
coffin for her dead form. They alone — without neighbors, 
without ceremony, and without sjTupathizing relatives — laid 
her tenderly in her grave at the foot of a tall sycamore tree. 
The winds moaned the dirge, the birds sang the requiem, and 
the heart of the lad felt the solemnity of the sermon of 
Nature. Oh ! he loved his mother dearly ; he revered her 
memory daily ; and in sunshine revery, or in midnight 
dreams he saw that beautiful mother's face. He pined that 
no sacred hymns were chanted at her grave. He regretted 
that their poverty forbade even the presence of a minister, 
and he could not forget that she had deserved so much and 
received so little. In the height of childish resolution he 
prepared to have a minister come from some distant part 
to preach a sermon, or say at least o'er her dead body the 
"Lord's Prayer." 

Finally, after considerable trials and hardship, he man- 
aged to induce a clergyman who lived something over a 
hundred miles away to come and pay this final tribute to the 
departed mother. New life came to him after this debt of 



134 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

respect was paid. He read the Bible, and from it, especially 
from the New Testament, he drank in with unquenchable 
thirst the new philosophy of the Scriptures. These words, 
and in this beautifully clothed form, lent new ideals to him, 
and here he found the essence of so much which he so freely 
referred to in later years. This new drift — this biblical lit- 
erature — came into his life as a request of a dying mother. 
That he held her advice dear and that he profited by it, let 
us take his own words as the best of proof. For when he had 
reached the zenith of his career he paid motherhood the 
highest, most sublime and eloquent tribute to be found in 
our language, when he said, "All I am or ever hope to be I 
owe to my angel mother." 

The boy possessed, too, a copy of "Pilgrim's Progress," and 
from its splendid English he learned the smooth and sooth- 
ful diction of the great John Bunyan ; in these writings he 
learned to appreciate the truth of the supremacy of justice and 
the everywhere-applicable principles of moderation coupled 
with righteousness. 

Lincoln was indeed a remarkable combination of literary 
influences, and it must not, on an occasion like this, seem 
the glory of the North alone, that he lived, Lincoln was in 
truth a Southerner by both birth and training, but a North- 
erner by both sentiment and principle. His parents, both 
paternal and maternal, were of Southeni extraction and he 
was shaped in his love for liberty by Southern writers. 
Southern orators, and Southern statesmen, who possessed the 
broad and patriotic national love. He read Washington, 
and there learned of the evolution of American freedom ; he 
studied and admired Thomas Jefferson, whose unanswerable 
statement that "All men are born equal" became the very 
foundation stone of our national fabric, the very substance of 
the Lincoln campaign. This eminent advocate of universal 
privilege, was a Virginian. The master-mind of the Constitu- 
tional Convention, James Madison, was one of his ideals, 
and he too came from Virginia. Then there was Patrick 
Henrj' who preceded all others in his defiance of tyranny 
for liberty. He too came from the old Dominion, and when 



THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 133 

the National Constitution was put into operation with all 
its uncertain constructions and its innumerable undefined 
meanings, it was a Virginian of unequalled legal sagacity 
and remarkable discernment, who gave direction to that in- 
strument. This man, who more than any other living states- 
man stamped the correct seal upon our national destiny, was 
the scholar, patriot, and ever-famed John Marshall of Vir- 
ginia. Thus Southerners of a national spirit practically 
shaped our Lincoln for the superhuman task of saving the 
Union of States, Their writings, their eloquent words, and 
clear documents of state prepared Lincoln to appreciate the 
oratorical efforts of Webster and Hayne in their fiery con- 
tests for their respective sections; and, when the great cloud 
of secession came on the horizon, none in the broad land 
was more capable of seeing hope or seeing light in the 
scenes of war about to take effect. We have just celebrated 
his matchless debates with the "Little Giant," Stephen A. 
Douglas, and we are still filled with admiration for his cool, 
collected, and logical arguments in favor of the Constitution 
and Union of the forefathers. He demonstrated to an ex- 
pectant general public that while he might not be generally 
known, he nevertheless was generally informed. The Doug- 
las defeat which brought to the surface the literary ability 
of Lincoln was the beginning of much distress for him. 
He was sought as the presidential candidate, and to permit 
the far East to enjoy itself, some editors proposed to invite 
Lincoln to New York "and let us hear what this backwoods- 
man knows of the Constitution." Every one was asked to 
come to the Cooper Union speech, "It will be a rare treat," 
they wrote.- "Lincoln is a queer fellow; his clothes are 
shabby, ill-fitting, and his long hair unkempt. But come out 
to see him ; this ungainly lawyer when he walks down Broad- 
way in his unstyled suit, will bring hysteria to all New 
York." 

Yes, he brought hysteria to old New York, but of a far 
different kind than they had expected. He came to the gath- 
ering. He was introduced to a curiously interested audi- 
ence. He stood in an ungainly manner; his face seemed 



136 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

all bones, and homely; his hair did hang carelessly about 
his head, and his deeply sunken eyes hid behind shaggy eye- 
brows. The crowds scanned him oritically. The editors had 
painted him in proper hues, and in truth they would be en- 
tertained in a novel and most odd fashion, Lincoln, from 
the first sentence, seemed to arouse laughter; he gained their 
attention, and as he progressed in the vivid description of 
the evolution, construction, and meaning of the Declaration 
of Independence, supplemented by his graphic analysis of the 
basic law of the land — our Constitution — he awakened hearty 
response. The hearers were amazed at his language; they 
were spellbound by his clinching arguments; they eagerly 
drank in the eloquence and all forgot his physical pose. They 
now saw the real man. With flush of cheek, the brow sym- 
bolizing intelligence, the eyes aglow with fires of truth, and 
in all a giant of the rostrum, amid storms of applause he stood 
defending the heritage of from Lexington to Yorktown. 

The Gettysburg Address, this day presented to the Chicago 
Public Library, is on copper, and, like the metal upon which 
it is embossed, will not corrode in our memory. It is doubt- 
less one of our truly American literary pearls. The occasion 
upon which Lincoln gave it, has features which appeal to us 
all. The terrible Battles of Gettysburg — fought on July 1, 
2, and 3, of '63 — brought sorrow to more homes than any 
battle in modern times. Thirty-four thousand wearing the 
gray and twenty-three thousand clothed in the blue died in 
the struggle to rear their beloved colors — in anguish, in mad- 
ness, and in superhuman defiance, died in defence of their 
flag. About a hundred days later the nation dedicated on 
this battlefield a cemetery. The occasion was memorable; 
hundreds of thousands of the admiring living would be there 
to witness the event, and the most distinguished orator in all 
the land was invited to deliver the address of the day. The 
orator, Edward Everett, was chosen, and the day of dedication 
at hand, when one of the Committee perchance thought of 
inviting Abraham Lincoln to be present; some other ven- 
turous committeemen ventured the suggestion that Lincoln 
be asked to make a talk. This fell on approving ears. The 




Statui^ of Abraham Lincoln by Vni^nslns Saint-( landcns, 1SS7 
(Located at the .-out h end of Lirieolii Park, ('liicat,'o) 




/■n.M. .1 i,h,,l,ni,;,i,l, ,-i,i„iri!ihl. ;■"<;. hi/ Ainiiiflii II. s,uHl-i;iiii,l,-ii.-i 



>i:iMii' ol' Al)r;ili:iin Lincoln 1)V Aiiiiusl us Siiinl-dauilciis, l')()7 



(A n'iU 1(. ill.- Soiilli Side- of Chicago, l<> be (■n'ctf<l liy llic Tnisli-cs of ll;.' Crcrar 

I'liiiil. Ni.l y.-t iiiiwilcd. Kcpi<i<tii''''l '>y |>rriiii--i.iii i>f tlic 

'rni-ti-c~ 111" lln- ( 'ri'rar Fniul • 



THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 1S7 

objection quickly came, **He will hardly expect that, and 
moreover, before such an august audience he will not be 
heard, and we want this to be the occasion of master-effort 
oratory." The people gathered. The great and eminent 
were present. Lincoln had finally been invited; but he was 
allowed to understand that the eminent, the distinguished 
and flowery Edward Everett, would be expected to consume 
such time as he desired. The far-famed orator from New 
England was introduced. He proceeded with all the knowl- 
edge of oratory to gather the auditory admiration ; he was 
painting beautiful scenes; he was designing carefully studied 
equations of eloquence; he was delving into ancient history, 
bringing to the surface the beauties of the ruins of the old 
world, and seemed in a serene atmosphere of all that was 
rhetorical — learned, scholarly, and poetic. His discourse 
lasted one hour and a half, and the assemblage had truly 
heard a great man. Then the humble, the somewhat shunned 
President of the United States was introduced. He calmly, 
yet with a depth of sadness never equalled, came forward. 
His bowed head was weary of the strife; his eyes had wept 
bitter tears of sorrow; his noble soul had suffered untold 
agonies during the days that Gettysburg resounded with 
cannonading. He stood erect, and, in a majestic and almost 
divine attitude, began that grand summary of our history. 
His Address lasted just four minutes, during which time he 
pictured plainly the settlement period, then the Revolu- 
tionary epoch, then the Constitutional career of this great 
nation. He followed up with the struggle at Gettysburg; 
reassured the living and the martyred that the dead had not 
died in vain ; climaxed the scene with renewed devotion 
to liberty, and proclaimed the everlasting reign of our free- 
dom. The world little remembers what Everett said that 
day. His logic, his conclusions, and all the bright colors of 
that canvas have darkened and almost faded away; but the 
living shades from the eloquent lips of Lincoln— they live — 
they will continue to grow more clearly and take on their 
true harmonies as the days enter the portals of our eastern 
shores, the youth of the land eagerly drink in their meaning ; 



138 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

and the best and most unselfish history of the United States 
can be seen in the words of the Gettysburg Address. 

This one Address stamps Lincoln as a master of our lan- 
guage — makes him a part of the literary galaxy of our land. 
His constant faith in books and his ever-willingness to make 
them his companions lends reason for my classing him as 
a literary product. He had no teachers and his greatness 
rested on his book foundations. He believed in books and 
loved them; he pronounced them his "unfailing and unfalter- 
ing friends." "When all was dark and gloomy and even hope 
seemed madness ; when senators could not be trusted ; when 
representatives deceived him; when generals deserted the 
cause; when diplomats in the foreign lands traitorously lent 
the Confederacy aid; and when even his own Cabinet was 
disloyal to him personally — then he would steal into the 
library of the "White House and bury himself in the depths 
of some favorite prose or poetry. His poetic nature naturally 
sought relief in quietude, and his choice lines from Knox 
were thoroughly expressive of his broad and democratic na- 
ture. The lines he most loved were : 

"The leaves of the oak and the willow shall fade, 
Be scatter'd around and together be laid ; 
And the young and the old and the low and the high, 
Shall moulder to dust yet together shall lie." 

Then he would emerge from the book-world with new 
hopes, with new^ life, and with renewed fortitude, and assume 
his stern and oath-bound duty. 

Lincoln was the happy embodiment of the typically national 
American ; he seemed to possess that peculiar requisite which 
the times demanded, and was well equipped and thoroughly 
prepared mentally and physically to endure those hardships, 
and triumph over almost unsurmountable obstacles. We all 
love Abraham Lincoln. His very name brings warmth to 
our hearts. His life was exemplary of loyalty and his name 
is inscribed high on the rolls of fame. While he was a farmer, 
he does not belong to them ; though a lawyer, yet the attorneys 
can not claim him ; though he fought with the North, yet he 



THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 139 

does not seem our otmi. He can not be claimed a full pos- 
session by even the entire Union. Lincoln has grown, and 
endeared himself, and now belongs to the entire liberty-lov- 
ing world. 



THE FREEPOET DEBATE 

GEN, SMITH D. ATKINS 

I AM to speak about that which it appears to me happened 
only yesterday — the joint debate between Abraham Lin- 
coln and Stephen A. Douglas, at Freeport, August 27, 1858. 

I want you to remember these two things: The Missouri 
Compromise of 1820, that excluded slavery by an Act of 
Congress from the Territories, was repealed in 1854 ; the Dred 
Scott case was decided by the Supreme Court in 1856, and 
that Court decided that slavery was recognized in the Consti- 
tution of the United States, and went into all the Territories, 
and everywhere that the Constitution was supreme, there 
being no power that could exclude it, legislative, executive or 
judicial; and that therefore the Northwest Ordinance of 
1787, the Free State Constitution of Illinois of 1818, the Mis- 
souri Compromise of 1820, were null and void so far as the 
question of slavery was concerned. These were the burning 
questions discussed. 

^Ir. Lincoln arrived in Freeport from Mendota about nine 
o'clock in the morning, and went to his room in the Brewster 
House. There was no conference of leading Republicans as 
to the course Mr. Lincoln should pursue, nothing of the kind. 
All discussion appeared to come about purely by accident — 
the door of Mr. Lincoln's room wide open, people coming and 
going as they chose. 

The subject under discussion when I entered the room 
was the solemn manner of jNIr. Lincoln's oratory in the first of 
the series of joint debates at Ottawa, on August 21, all present 
who engaged in the conversation urging Lincoln to drop 
his solemn style of argument and tell stories, as did Tom 
Corwiu, of Ohio, and "catch the crowd." 

Mr. Lincoln appeared greatly amused, and said very little, 

140 



THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 141 

but after a while he drew from his pocket a list of questions 
that he had carefully prepared and which he proposed to 
ask Mr. Douglas. The reading of those questions created a 
storm of opposition on the part of nearly everyone present, es- 
pecially the second question, "Can the people of a United 
States Territory, in any lawful way, against the wish of any 
citizen of the United States, exclude slavery from its limits 
prior to the formation of a State Constitution ? ' ' Nearly all 
present urged that Mr. Douglas would answer that under his 
doctrine of ''Popular Sovereignty," any Territory could by 
"unfriendly legislation" exclude slavery, and Mr. Douglas 
would * ' catch the crowd ' ' and beat Mr. Lincoln as a candidate 
for United States Senator from Illinois. 

Mr. Lincoln listened attentively, and with wonderful pa- 
tience, while those arguments were urged against the course he 
proposed to pursue, but finally, he slowly and deliberately 
replied in substance — and in his own words as nearly as I can 
now remember them — "Well, as to my changing my style of 
argument, I will not do that — the subject is too solemn and 
important. That is settled. Now as to the other point — 
I don 't know how Mr. Douglas will answer ; if he answers that 
the people of a Territory cannot exclude slavery, I will beat 
him; but if he answers as you say he will, and as I believe 
he will, he may beat me for Senator, but he will never be 
President. ' ' 

Mr. Lincoln did, in the joint debate in the afternoon, ask 
'Judge Douglas the question that had been the subject of so 
much discussion, and Douglas did answer, as all said that he 
would, and as Lincoln believed that he would, and Douglas did 
beat Lincoln as a candidate for Senator from Illinois. But in 
making that answer Douglas put himself in direct opposition 
to the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States 
in the Dred Scott case, and he so offended the Democrats 
of the South that they instantly denounced him. That an- 
swer made by Douglas to Lincoln's question in Freeport, on 
August 27, 1858, split the Democratic National Convention 
at Charleston, South Carolina, in 1860, and as Lincoln had pre- 
dicted, made the election of Douglas as President impossible. 



112 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

The popular opinion was and is, that it made Lincoln so well 
known throughout the country as to result in his own nom- 
ination and election as President of the United States. 

Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Douglas had long been rivals, but, by 
his superior ability as a debater, Mr. Lincoln at Freeport, Aug- 
ust 27, 1858, passed his rival and went onward to the presi- 
dency, the goal of political ambition which Mr. Douglas never 
reached. 

And when Mr. Lincoln became President and read his won- 
derful Inaugural Address, it was Stephen A. Douglas who 
stood by his side and held his hat. I heard Senator Douglas 
say in Springfield, in Aj)ril, 1861, "The time has come when 
there can be but two parties in this country, patriots and 
traitors." He was as loyal as was Mr. Lincoln. And, better 
still, the Douglas Democrats of Illinois — and, better than that, 
the Douglas Democrats throughout all the loyal North — were 
as loyal as their loyal leader. Shortly afterward the great 
Senator died. Mr. Lincoln lived longer — lived to conduct suc- 
cessfully the suppression of the greatest rebellion in history, 
and when the sunlight of complete victory filled all the land 
with joy, Mr. Lincoln was assassinated. 

Sometimes I almost despair of the Republic. Three of the 
Presidents in my short lifetime have so met death by assas- 
sination. Why it was that the good Lord God Almighty 
permitted it, I do not understand. God's ways are not our 
ways. We dare not criticise. We must submit. Standing 
by the bedside of Mr. Lincoln when he died was his great War 
Secretary-, Stanton, who said, "Now he belongs to the ages. 
Name his name once more — Abraham Lincoln — then leave it 
in undying glory forever shining on in history." 



TWO MOMENTOUS MEETINGS 

MAJ,-GEN. FREDERICK DENT GRANT 

1FEEL deeply honored that you have called upon me on 
this interesting occasion, but I have great modesty in 
speaking to you here, in the presence of these many distin- 
guished and gifted orators, and while I appreciate the compli- 
ment you pay me, I fully realize that it is not myself 
personally whom you wish to hear, but that I am being wel- 
comed as the son of Ulysses S. Grant, who served his country 
faithfully, with Abraham Lincoln, and who loyally loved our 
martyred President, revering his memory throughout his life ; 
it is the descendant of Lincoln's friend and compatriot whom 
you call upon for a few words. 

This hundredth anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lin- 
coln is an occasion which the people of the United States 
honor themselves in celebrating, and they should, in my opin- 
ion, keep forever green the memory of this great American 
statesman and patriot by making the annual anniversary of 
his birth a national holiday. 

It was my great good fortune to be with my father, close 
at his side, much of the time during the Civil "War, when I 
had the opportimity of seeing and listening to many of the 
noble and distinguished men who were loyally serving their 
country during that great struggle; thus I had the honor 
and happiness of seeing and meeting our revered and mar- 
tyred President, Abraham Lincoln. 

In looking back to those dark days of the Civil War, I have 
distinct personal recollections of the first two meetings be- 
tween President Lincoln and my father, General U. S. Grant. 
These two occasions seem to my mind the most momentous and 
memorable in the history of our nation, as these meetings 

143 



144 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

marked the beginning of the end of our great stniggl-? for 
the existence of our nation. 

The principal and determined efforts of President Lincoln 's 
administration were directed to the preservation of the Union, 
which, naturally, could not be accomplished without the suc- 
cess of the Union armies in the field. Up to the Spring of 
1864 the progress of the Civil War had not been satisfactory 
to the people of the North, and little success had been accom- 
plished except in the victories at Donelson, Vicksburg, and 
Chattanooga. 

After the Campaign of Chattanooga, the President and the 
people of the United States turned impulsively to General 
Grant as the leader of the Union Armies, and a bill was intro- 
duced in Congress reviving for him the grade of Lieutenant- 
General, which grade had died with Washington (though 
Scott had held it by brevet). The enthusiastic members of 
the House of Representatives received the bill with applause. 
They made no concealment of their wishes, and recommended 
Grant by name for the appointment of Lieutenant-General. 
The bill passed the House by a two-thirds majority; and the 
Senate, with only six dissenting votes. 

President Lincoln seemed impatient to put Grant in this 
high grade, and said he desired to do so to relieve himself 
from the responsibilities of managing the military forces. He 
sent the nomination to the Senate, and General Grant, who 
was at Nashville, received an order from the Secretary of 
War, to report in person at Washington. In compliance 
with this order, he left Chattanooga on March 5, for Washing- 
ton, taking with him some members of his staff. My father 
allowed me to accompany him there, I having been with 
him during the Vicksburg campaign and at Donelson. We 
reached Washington in the afternoon of March 7, and went 
direct to Willard's Hotel. After making our toilets, my 
father took me with him to the hotel dining-room. There I 
remember seeing at the table next to where we were seated, 
some persons who seemed curious, and who began to whisper 
to each other. After several moments one of the gentlemen 
present attracted attention by pounding on the table with 



THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 145 

his knife, and when silence was secured, arose and announced 
to the assembled diners that he had "the honor to inform them, 
that General Grant was present in the room with them. ' ' A 
shout arose, ' ' Grant ! Grant ! Grant ! ' ' People sprang to their 
feet wild with excitement, and three cheers were proposed, 
which were given with wild enthusiasm. My father arose 
and bowed, and the crowd began to surge around him; after 
that, dining became impossible and an informal reception was 
held for perhaps three-quarters of an hour, but as there 
seemed to be no end to the crowd assembling, my father left 
the dining-room and retired to his apartments. All this 
scene was most vividly impressed upon my youthful mind. 

Senator Simon Cameron of Pennsylvania, ex-Secretary of 
War, soon called at Willard's Hotel for my father, and ac- 
companied him, with his staff, to the White House, where 
President and Mrs. Lincoln were holding a reception. 

As my father entered the drawing-room door at the White 
House, the other visitors fell back in silence, and President 
Lincoln received my father most cordially, taking both his 
hands, and saying, "I am most delighted to see you, General." 
I myself shall never forget this first meeting of Lincoln and 
Grant. It was an impressive affair, for there stood the Ex- 
ecutive of this great nation, welcoming the Commander of 
its armies. I see them now before me — Lincoln, tall, thin, and 
impressive, with deeply lined face, and his strong sad eyes — 
Grant, compact, of good size, but looking small beside the 
President, with his broad, square head and compressed lips, 
decisive and resolute. This was a thrilling moment, for in 
the hands of these two men was the destiny of our country. 
Their work was in cooperation, for the preservation of our 
great nation, and for the liberty of men. They remained 
talking together for a few moments, and then General Grant 
passed on into the East Room with the crowd which sur- 
rounded and cheered him wildly, and all present were eager 
to press his hand. The guests present forced him to stand 
upon a sofa, insisting that he could be better seen by all. I 
remember that my father, of whom they wished to make a 
hero, blushed most modestly at these enthusiastic attentions, 



146 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

all present joining in expressions of affection and applause. 
Soon a messenger reached my father calling him back to the 
side of Mrs. Lincoln, and with her he made a tour of the recep- 
tion rooms, followed by President Lincoln, whose noble, nigged 
face beamed with pleasure and gratification. 

When an opportunity presented itself for them to speak 
privately, President Lincoln said to my father, "I am to 
formally present you your commission to-morrow morning at 
ten o'clock, and knowing, General, your dread of speaking, I 
have written out what I have to say, and will read it ; it will 
only be four or five sentences. I would like you to say some- 
thing in reply which will soothe the feeling of jealousy among 
the officers, and be encouraging to the nation." Thus spoke 
this great and noble peacemaker to the general who so heartily 
coincided with him in sentiments and work for union and 
peace. 

When the reception was over at the White House, my father 
returned to Willard's Hotel, where a great crowd was again 
assembled to greet him and remained with him until a late 
hour of the night. After the crowd had dispersed, my father 
sat down and wrote what he intended to say the following 
day in receiving his commission promoting him to the Lieu- 
tenant-Generalcy and to the command of the Union armies. 

Father proceeded to the White House a few minutes before 
ten o'clock the next morning, permitting me to accompany him. 
Upon arriving there. General Grant and his staff were ushered 
into the President's office, which I remember was the room 
immediately above what is now known as the Red Room oi^ 
the Executive Mansion. There the President and his Cabinet 
were assembled, and after a short and informal greeting, all 
standing, the President faced General Grant, and from a 
sheet of paper read the following : 

"General Grant: The nation's appreciation of what you have done, 
and its reliance upon you for what remains to do in the existing great 
struggle, are now presented with this commission, constituting you 
lioutenant-general in the Army of the United States. 

"With this high honor devolves upon you also a corresponding ro- 
Bponsibility. As the country herein trusts you, so, under God, it will 



THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 147 

sustain you. I scarcely need add, that with what I here speak for the 
nation, goes my own hearty personal concurrence." 

My father, taking from his pocket a sheet of paper contain- 
ing the words that he had written the night before, read 
quietly and modestly, to the President and his Cabinet: 

"Mr. President: I accept the commission with gratitude for the high 
honor conferred. With the aid of the noble armies that have fought 
in so many fields for our common country, it will be my earnest en- 
deavor not to disappoint your expectations, I feel the full weight of 
the responsibilities now devolving upon me, and I know that if they 
are met, it will be due to those armies, and, above all, to the favor of 
that Providence which leads both nations and men." 

President Lincoln seemed to be profoundly happy, and 
General Grant deeply gratified. It was a supreme moment 
when these two patriots shook hands, in confirming the com- 
pact that was to finish our terrible Civil War and to save our 
united country, and to give us a nation without master and 
without a slave. 

From the time of these meetings, the friendship between 
the President and my father was most close and loyal. Pres- 
ident Lincoln seemed to have absolute confidence in General 
Grant, and my father always spoke of the President with the 
deepest admiration and affection. This affection and loyal 
confidence was maintained between them until their lives 
ended. 

I feel deeply grateful to have been present when these two 
patriots met, on the occasion when they loyally promised one 
another to preserve the Union at all costs. I preserve al- 
ways, as a treasure in my home, a large bronze medallion 
which was designed by a distinguished artist at the request 
of the loyal citizens of Philadelphia, upon the happy termina- 
tion of our great Civil War, and which is a beautiful work of 
art. Upon this bronze medallion are three faces, in relief, 
wdth the superscription: "Washington the Father, Lincoln the 
Saviour, and Grant the Preserver" — emblematic of a great 
and patriotic trinity. 



A VOICE FROM THE SOUTH 

HON. J. M. DICKINSON 

WHAT I say will carry no significance, if I voice merely 
my personal sentiments, though they accord entirely 
with the spirit that prompted this memorial, and pervades 
this assembly. But in what esteem the South holds the name 
and fame of Abraham Lincoln is of national interest. All 
present should with sincere solemnity unite in honoring him, 
who is and always will be regarded as one of the world's 
immortals, and there should be no note of discord in the 
grand diapason which swells up from a grateful people in 
this Centennial Celebration. I would have stayed away, if I 
could not heartily respond to the spirit of the occasion ; and 
would not speak in the representative character implied by an 
introduction as a "Voice from the South," if I did not believe 
that what I will say is a true reflection of the feelings and 
judgment of those who have the best right to be regarded as 
sponsors for the South. I recall as vividly as if it were to-day, 
when, in 1860, a messenger, with passionate excitement, dashed 
up to our school in Mississippi, the State of Jefferson Davis, 
and proclaimed that Abraham Lincoln was elected. The 
Brides of Enderby did not ring out in more dismal tones, or 
carry a greater shock to the hearts of the people. "We had 
passed through a political campaign unsurpassed in bitterness. 
The true Lincoln had not been fully revealed, and had been 
transformed in the South — as the great protagonist of the 
South was transformed in the North — by the heat of the 
fiercest controversy that our country' had ever experienced. 

In the youthful imagination stirred to its highest pitch by 
the explosive sentiment of the times, without the corrective of 
mature judgment, Lincoln's name was invested with such 
terrors as the Chimera inspired in the children of Lycia. A 

148 



THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 149 

wave of emotions, feelings of indignation, commingled with a 
vague sense of impending evil, swept over us. Our souls mir- 
rored the spirit of the times and its environment. From that 
day to the surrender at Appomattox, we would not have 
regretted the death of Lincoln any more than did the people 
of the North the fall of Stonewall Jackson. The War was 
protracted. There was time for revision of impressions. 
Sorrow in Protean forms, that pervaded every household, and, 
like the croaking raven, seemed as if it would never more de- 
part, attuned their souls to an appreciation that those in the 
high tide of happiness and prosperity can never fully have, of 
facts that revealed a gentle spirit and a heart that was wom- 
anly in its tenderness, and in its sympathies commensurate 
with human suffering. Amid the pseans of victory, sorrows 
over defeat, the times of hope, the periods of despair, con- 
gratulations to the victorious living, dirges for the dead; in 
the gloomy intervals, all too short, when they were not sus- 
tained by the excitement of battle, there drifted in stories of 
generous acts, soft words, and brotherly sentiments from him 
whom they had regarded as their most implacable enemy. 
They came to know that his heart was a stranger to hatred, 
that he was willing to efface himself if his country might be 
exalted, and that his love for the Union surpassed all other 
considerations. 

They were profoundly impressed, when, at his Second Inau- 
gural — a time when it was apparent that the Confederacy was 
doomed — he said: 

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in 
the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish 
the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him 
who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan — 
to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace 
among ourselves, and with all nations." 

With this favorable condition for responsive sentiment, the 
scene changed. Appomattox came, and then in quick sequence 
a total surrender. A civilization which developed some qual- 
ities of splendor and worth never surpassed — a civilization 
allied with an institution which all other Christian countries 



150 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

had freed themselves of, and subsequently condemned, but 
which the South, with its conditions and environments, could 
not at once, without precipitating an immeasurable catas- 
trophe, abolish — fell into financial, social, and political ruin 
as complete as that which overwhelmed the people of Messina. 

The world did not spontaneously comfort them with tender 
words and overwhelm them with generous aid. Foreign na- 
tions dared not offend the triumphant flag. Potential voices 
at the North rang out fiercely for a bloody assize. Then it 
was that the great patriot, undazzled by success, untouched by 
the spirit of revenge, moved by generous sympathies, with the 
eye of a seer, looked beyond the passions of the times, saw 
the surest way for consolidating this people into a Union of 
hearts as well as of States, and, stretching out his command- 
ing arm over the turbulent waters, said, "Peace, be still." 

The magnanimous terms granted to their surrendered soldiers 
convinced the Southern people that Lincoln, having accom- 
plished by force of anns the great work of saving the union 
of the States, would consecrate himself with equal devotion 
to the no less arduous and important work, for the endurance 
of our national life, of rehabilitating the seceding States, re- 
storing to effective citizenship those who had sought to estab- 
lish an independent government, and bringing them back to 
the allegiance which they had disavowed. There was a new 
estimate by the Southern people of his character and motives. 
They learned that he was not inspired by personal ambition, 
that he was full of the spirit of abnegation, even to the point 
of self-abasement, that he did not exult over them in victory, 
but sorrowed with those in affliction, that his heart was always 
responsive to distress, his soul full of magnanimity, and that 
he was filled with a patriotism which held in its loving em- 
brace our entire country. With this new aspect in which he 
was regarded by our people, I well remember where I stood, 
and the consternation that filled all faces, when his assassina- 
tion was announced. I will not say that some fierce natures, 
that some of the thoughtless, did not exult. But, as a witness 
of the times, I testify that there was general manifestation 
of sorrow and indignation. I would not convey the im- 



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THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 151 

pression that it was an exponent of such feeling for Lincoln 
as went out from the people of the North. That would have 
been as unnatural at that time, as it would have been ignoble 
to rejoice over his suffering, or approve the dastardly act that 
laid him low. It came partly from such chivalric spirit as 
that which evoked the lament of Percy over the fallen 
Douglas at Chevy Chase. It came also from a realization of 
their own condition — the sense of an impending storm, 
charged with destructive thunderbolts forged by political 
hatred, and launched by those who would humiliate them, 
grind their very faces to the earth, make their slaves task- 
masters over them, and if possible expatriate them and divide 
their substance — and the belief that Abraham Lincoln, who 
had been the leader in the fierce contest between the States, 
alone so held the affections and confidence of the Northern 
people that he could speedily "bind up the nation's wounds" 
and "achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among our- 
selves. ' ' 

Nearly forty-four years have passed since that woeful event. 
I stood on Decoration Day by the monument erected in Oak- 
woods Cemetery — mainly by the contributions of Northern 
people — to the memory of the unknown Confederate soldiers 
who yielded up their lives as prisoners of war at Camp Doug- 
las, and saw the Illinois soldiery fire over those who fought 
for the Stars and Bars the same salute that was fired over 
those who fought for the Stars and Stripes. Within a short 
time there will be unveiled on the capitol grounds at Nashville, 
a monument to Sam Davis, the hero boy of Tennessee, who was 
hung as a rebel spy. General G. M. Dodge, who ordered his 
execution, and many other people of the North, were foremost 
among the contributors. The voice of Wheeler that had urged 
on the sons of the South in a hundred battles against the 
Union, rang out with equal devotion while leading our soldiers 
from North and South under the flag of our common country. 
In the same uniform, a son of a Grant, and a son of a Lee, 
ride side by side. Am I not right, here in the North, and in 
this assembly, in saying that the American people, reunited 
— with no contest, except in generous rivalry to advance their 



152 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

country's welfare, cherishing, but without bitterness, the 
proud memories of their conflict — have long since realized 
the prophecy of Lincoln at his First Inaugural that : 

"The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and 
patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad 
land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as 
surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature." 

The death of Lincoln postponed for a dreary time that 
happy era. How much humiliation, sorrow, wretchedness, and 
hate, what an Iliad of woes to white and black came through 
his untimely end, no tongue or pen can ever portray. 

As far as the human mind can estimate and compare what 
was with what might have been, it was for the entire nation, 
but especially for the South, the most lamentable tragedy in 
history. My judgment, based upon years of observation and 
study, is that it was, in the light of subsequent events, more 
regretted by the Southern people than was the fall of the 
Confederacy. 

What conflicts, what ingratitude, what disappointments in 
his great purposes, he may have been spared, we do not know. 
But we know that at the height of his fame, at the triumphant 
close of the great conflict which he had led, he was, by a 
tragedy that shocked the world, caught up from the stage of 
human action and its vicissitudes, and fixed forever as one of 
the greatest luminaries in that galaxy of illustrious men who 
will shine throughout the ages. 

He passed out of view like tropic sun that — 

"With disc like battle target red 
Rushes to his burning bed, 
Dyes the wide wave with ruddy light. 
Then sinks at once and all is night." 

Southern-born — with mind, heart, and soul loyal to its tra- 
ditions, believing that the South was within its constitutional 
rights as the Constitution then stood, that her leaders were 
patriotic, that her people showed a devotion to principles 
without a touch of sordidness, that such action as theirs could 
only come from a deep conviction that counted not the cost 



THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 15S 

of sacrifice, cherishing as a glorious legacy the renown of her 
armies and leaders, whose purity of life and heroism were 
unsurpassed by those of any people at any one time — yet I 
say in all sincerity and without reservation, that I rejoice as 
much as any of you that our country produced Abraham Lin- 
coln, who will, as long as great intellect, patriotism, sincerity, 
self-denial, magnanimity, leadership, heroism, and those 
graces of the mind and heart which reflect the gentle spirit 
are cherished, shed lustre, not only upon hia countrymen, 
but upon all humanity. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN AT THE BAR OF ILLINOIS 

JOHN T. RICHARDS 

OF the early life of Abraham Liueoln, I shall not speak. 
His life in Kentucky and Indiana — his emigration to 
Illinois, at the age of nineteen years — his settlement at New 
Salem, his mercantile ventures there, his first candidacy for 
the Legislature, in which, as he said in later years, he met 
the only defeat he ever suffered at the hands of the people, 
are matters of history, with which all are familiar. He had 
passed through all these experiences before the end of the 
year 1834. He was then but twenty-four years of age, and 
had, within five years after his arrival in Illinois, been suc- 
cessively a farm-hand, laborer, clerk, and store-keeper. In 
1834, he was elected a member of the Legislature and re- 
elected for the three succeeding terms — his last election being 
in the year 1840. During the time of his service in the 
Legislature, he pursued the study of law and was admitted 
to the bar of Illinois, March 1, 1837, being at that time 
twenty-eight years of age. 

At the time of Lincoln's admission to the bar, the rules of 
the Supreme Court did not require the applicant to submit 
to an examination as to his qualifications. The only require- 
ments of the statute then in force, and which went into effect 
March 1, 1833, were that before he could be permitted to 
practice as an attorney or counsellor-at-law, he must have 
obtained a license for that purpose from some two of the 
Justices of the Supreme Court, and that he should not be 
entitled to receive such license until he had obtained a certifi- 
cate from the Court of some County, of his good moral 
character. 

Having obtained a license from two of the Judges of the 
Supreme Court, he was required to take an oath to support 

154 



THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 155 

the Constitution of the United States and this State. The 
person who administered the oath was required to certify 
the same on the license, and on presentation of the license 
in this form to the Clerk of the Supreme Court, the latter 
was required to enroll the name of the applicant as an attor- 
ney or counsellor. 

The required oath of office seems to indicate that the 
Legislature contemplated two classes in the profession, (1) 
attorneys; (2) counsellors; for the oath reads, "I will in all 
things faithfully execute the duties of an attorney-at-law or 
counsellor-at-law (as the case may be)," etc. 

The first rule of Court relating to admission to the bar, 
was adopted March 1, 1841, and required all applicants for 
a license to practise law, to present themselves in person for 
examination in open court, except in cases where the appli- 
cant had been regularly admitted to the bar in some Court 
of Record within the United States. The Court was at that 
time composed of nine judges, who were required to perform 
circuit duties also. The State was divided into nine Judicial 
Circuits, one of the Judges presiding over each of the Circuit 
Courts; and all met together as a Supreme Court, and each 
was afforded an opportunity to review orders and decrees 
of the other members of the Court. 

The proceedings in all the Courts were much less dignified 
and formal than they are in this generation. The judges 
and the lawyers met on the Circuit as friends, upon a common 
level, and as there were no places of amusement where the 
long evenings could be spent, they gathered about a common 
fireside at the country tavern and regaled each other with 
anecdotes and songs. The judge who heard their cases threw 
aside judicial dignity, when evening came, and joined with 
his professional brethren in the merrymaking. Life upon the 
Circuit in those days, as in every new community, had its 
sunshine and its shadows, but every hardship had its compen- 
sation in the goodfellowship, which always prevailed among 
those sturdy pioneers. 

The experiences of Lincoln upon the Circuit were not un- 
like those of other lawyers of that day. There was little 



156 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

that required great skill or much learning in the law. The 
interests involved were for the most part trivial, measured by 
a monetary standard — but they involved the same questions 
of right and justice which invite our professional attention 
in these latter days. 

In the nisi prius Courts, Abraham Lincoln was called upon 
to try cases of every class, both civil and criminal, and he 
entered upon the trial of cases involving but a few dollars 
with as much zeal as those involving thousands; but no crim- 
inal case in which Lincoln appeared as an attorney is to be 
found in the reports of the decisions of the Supreme Court 
of Illinois. Whether this fact is due to his great ability as 
an advocate before a jury or to some other cause, I am unable 
to state, but, as his contemporaries inform us that he tried 
very many criminal cases, none of which appear in the State 
Reports, it seems safe to assume that his clients in such cases 
were acquitted by the jury. 

Some of Lincoln's biographers have sought to make it ap- 
pear that Lincoln refused to take advantage of a so-called 
technicality in order to win his case. This view is not borne 
out by the record, for — while he possessed many attributes 
which all admit are above and beyond those possessed by 
ordinary mortals — as a lawyer he seems to have been no less 
human than other members of the profession, and while it 
may be truthfully said that he took no mean advantage of 
his professional brethren, he did not hesitate to press upon 
the attention of the Court any legitimate advantage which 
the record of the case might furnish. 

The first case in connection with which his name appears 
in the Supreme Court, furnishes evidence of this, being the 
case of J. Y. Seammon — afterwards Supreme Court Reporter 
— plaintiff in error vs. Cornelius Cline. Seammon had 
brought the suit before a Justice of the Peace in Boone 
County, and the 'Justice having rendered judgment in favor 
of the defendant, Seammon appealed to the Circuit Court of 
Boone County. At the time the appeal from the Justice was 
perfected, Boone County was still a part of Jo Daviess 
County, for judicial purposes, and no Court having been 



THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 157 

appointed to be held in Boone County, it was contended by 
the defendant's counsel that the appeal should have been 
taken to Jo Daviess County. The defendant's motion to 
dismiss the appeal presented to the Circuit Court of Boone 
County at its first term, was sustained, and the ease was 
taken to the Supreme Court on error, Lincoln appearing for 
defendant in error, and resulted in a reversal of the decision 
of the Circuit Court. 

Another case which was decided upon a technical point 
raised by Lincoln, was the case of Maus vs. "Whitney, which 
was an appeal from the Circuit Court of Tazewell County. 
Lincoln represented the appellee and moved the Court to dis- 
miss the appeal on the technical ground that the bond was 
signed on behalf of the surety by his agent, whose authority, 
while in writing, was not under seal, and the motion was 
sustained. From this decision Justice Breese dissented in 
a short but very vigorous Opinion in which he took occasion 
to say that he could not yield up his judgment in any case 
because others had decided a point in a particular manner 
unless he could see the reason of the decision ; that he could 
see none in that case; and, believing as he did that the pur- 
poses of justice "are not at all subserved by an adherence 
to such antiquated rules and unmeaning technicalities," he 
refused to concur with the majority of the Court, and then 
proceeded to say that several of his brother judges coincided 
in the views which he expressed, but believing the rule laid 
down in the majority opinion to be the law, they considered 
themselves bound by it, notwithstanding its unreasonableness. 
He, however, expressed the opinion that if the alleged reason 
is absurd, it should not bind the Court. 

It is possible that Lincoln may have appeared as counsel 
in some case prior to his appearance in the case of Scammon 
vs. Cline already referred to, as the reporter in the preface 
in the first volume of Scammon 's Reports says, "that the 
practice of the Court, which required an abstract to be filed 
by counsel for appellant or plaintiff in error, while none was 
required of appellee or defendant in error, had the effect to 
cause a brief to be filed by the former, while the counsel for 



158 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

the latter nsually contented themselves with making their 
points and citing their authorities on the hearing," The re- 
porter complains also of the neglect of counsel in many cases 
to sign their names to their abstracts and declares that on 
account of the manner in which the docket was kept it was 
difficult to ascertain with precision who appeared as counsel. 

The case of Scammon vs. Cline was decided at the December 
Term, 1840. Lincoln had been a member of the bar at that 
time about three years, and was then thirty-one years of age. 

The case of Bailey vs. Cromwell, reported in the third of 
Scammon, in which Lincoln appeared for the appellant, is of 
peculiar interest to us. It was decided at the July Term, 
1841. The case was an action of assumpsit on a promissory 
note and was tried in the Circuit Court of Tazewell County, 
where Lincoln represented the defendant. Lincoln had 
pleaded the general issue, and filed among other special 
pleas, a plea of total failure of consideration, in which 
he set out that the note was given for the purchase of 
a negro girl, sold by Cromwell to Bailey and who was 
represented to Bailey at the time of the purchase, to be a 
slave and servant, when in fact she was free ; that Cromwell 
agreed to furnish Bailey with proof that the girl was a slave, 
which he had failed to do, and that, therefore, the considera- 
tion had wholly failed. A finding and judgment was ren- 
dered in the Circuit Court, for four hundred, thirty-one dol- 
lars, ninety- seven cents on the note, which was reversed by 
the Supreme Court, where it was held that the defendant, 
having shown that the girl was the consideration for the note, 
and the presumption of law being that she was free, and the 
sale of a free person being illegal, in the absence of proof 
to rebut the presumption that she was free, there was no valid 
consideration for the note. 

All the sessions of the Supreme Court, beginning with the 
July Term, 1839, to and including the December Term, 1847, 
were held at Springfield. 

The organization of the Court was changed by the adoption 
of the Constitution of 1848, the State being divided into three 
divisions, in each of which a term of Court was required to 



THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 159 

be held annually, and the Court thereafter consisted of three 
Judges elected by the people, one from each Division, who 
were not required to perform Circuit duty. The first Supreme 
Court Judges elected under the Constitution of 1848, were 
Samuel H. Treat, John D. Caton, and Lyman Trumbull, and 
the first cases decided by the Court, as thus constituted, ap- 
pear in the fifth of Oilman's Reports. The ninth and tenth 
volume of the Reports, contain no cases in which the name of 
Lincoln appears as counsel. This is no doubt due to the fact 
that during the two years, 1847 and 1848, he was a member 
of the National House of Representatives, for his name ap- 
pears as Counsel in seventeen cases in Volume 8 of the 
Reports, in six cases in Volume 11 of the Reports, and in 
thirteen cases in the twelfth Volume. Again, Voliune 20 of 
the Reports contains no case in which Lincoln appears as 
counsel. The Volume contains opinions in cases submitted 
in 1858, which was the year of the great debate with Douglas. 
This would seem to indicate that whatever Lincoln under- 
took received his undivided attention. 

It is said by some of Lincoln's associates at the bar, that 
he was not well grounded in the principles of the law, and 
that he was not a well-read lawyer, but all admit that he 
possessed a logical mind. It is doubtless true that he was not 
what is called a "case lawyer." He did not rely wholly upon 
precedent. To him the law was indeed the perfection of 
reason and he cited few authorities in support of his views, 
but depended upon the presentation of the reasons for the rule 
for which he contended. His strong common sense enabled 
him to see what the law ought to be, and with all the force 
of his great mind, he endeavored, with invincible logic, to win 
the Court to his view of the law, and had it not been for the 
fact that in many cases the Court found itself hampered by 
precedents, the record of his successes would have been greater 
still. The only branch of the law which seems to have escaped 
the activities of Lincoln, in the Supreme Court, is the 
criminal law. There is no record of any case involving a 
felony in w^hich Lincoln appeared as counsel in that Court, 
but in every other branch of the law he was active, and there 



160 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

seems to have been no form of procedure with which he was 
not familiar; in applications for writs of mandamus and 
quo warranto, he frequently appeared; in chancery proceed- 
ings, as well as the ordinary cases at common law, and cases 
involving the election laws and revenue laws of the State, 
he was equally at home. 

In his career at the bar, he crossed swords in the arena of 
his profession with the greatest lawyers of his time, among 
whom may be mentioned Jesse B. Thomas, 0. H. Browning, 
Leonard Swctt, Stephen T. Logan, Edward D, Baker, Elihu 
B. Washburne, Stephen A. Douglas, J. T. Stuart, Burton C. 
Cook, James A. McDougall — afterwards a U. S. Senator from 
California — Lyman Triunbull, B. S. Edwards, Isaac G. Wil- 
son, U. F. Linder, Thomas Campbell, Isaac N. Arnold, and 
many others whose names are impressed upon the jurispru- 
dence of the State, and with all of whom he held the most 
cordial relations. 

It must not be forgotten that for the greater part of the 
time between the years 1837 and 1861, the State of Illinois 
was chiefly an agricultural country. There were then no 
great commercial or manufacturing interests to call into play 
the talents of the skilful lawyer, and the value of the prop- 
erty or rights involved by comparison with the matters 
requiring the attention of the Courts at the present time, sink 
into insignificance, and yet Lincoln and other men who trav- 
elled the Circuit in those days, laid for us the foundation of 
the system of jurisprudence, which is the common law of 
Illinois to-day. 

While it must be admitted that he did not pursue his law 
studies under the guidance of an instructor, it is nevertheless 
true that Lincoln was self taught, and his comprehensive mind 
grasped the principles of the law as fully as if he had sat at 
the feet of the most learned of the profession. He read thor- 
oughly the standard works of his time, upon every branch of 
jurisprudence. While in attendance upon the courts, he lis- 
tened to the arguments of others learned in the law, and the 
crumbs of legal knowledge gleaned in this mamjer, found, 



THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION l6l 

lodgment in his fertile mind, to be used by him when occasion 
required. 

Lincoln appeared alone in the Supreme Court in sixty- three 
eases; of these, the decision was in his favor in thirty-eight 
cases, and he was defeated in twenty-five. 

He appeared as an associate counsel in the Supreme Court 
in one hundred and ten other cases, in which the parties rep- 
resented by him were successful in sixty-seven, and were de- 
feated in forty-three cases. What lawyer of this generation 
can show a greater record of successes ? 

His entire career at the bar covers a period of only twenty- 
four years, during three years of which we have seen, he was 
not engaged actively in the practice, and yet during that time 
he appeared in the Supreme Court in one hundred and seventy- 
three cases; of these, the cases of Miller vs. Whitaker, and 
Young vs. Miller, were consolidated on the hearing and one 
opinion covers both cases (23 111., 453), the same is true of the 
cases of Columbus Machine Manufacturing Co. vs. Dorwin, and 
the same vs. Ulrich (25 111., 153) ; also Kose vs. Irving and 
Pryor vs. Irving (14 III, 171) ; also two cases of Myers vs. 
Turner (17 111., 179) and also the cases of Moor vs. Vail, and 
Moore vs. Dodd (17 III, 185). 

A review of Lincoln's cases in the Supreme Court of Illi- 
nois added to an examination of his State papers and the 
debate with Douglas, will convince the most skeptical that 
Abraham Lincoln was one of the ablest lawyers of his time. 

Lincoln often appeared before the Supreme Court of Illi- 
nois while Judges Caton and Breese were members of the 
Court, and they had ample opportunity to judge of his stand- 
ing as a lawyer, for cases were argued orally at that time 
more frequently than at the present; the estimate of these 
men as to his standing and ability is therefore of great value. 

Judge Caton said of him, ''The most punctilious honor ever 
marked his professional life. His frankness and candor were 
two great elements in his character, which contributed to his 
professional success. If he discovered a weak point in his 
cause, he frankly admitted it, and thereby prepared the mind 



162 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

to accept the more readily his mode of avoiding it. He was 
equally potent before the jury as with the Court." Judge 
Breese said of him, ''Mr. Lincoln was never found deficient 
in all the knowledge requisite to present the strong points of 
his case to the best advantage, and by his searching analysis 
make clear the most intricate controversy. There was that 
within him, glowing in his mind, which enabled him to im- 
press with the force of his logic, his own clear perception 
upon the minds of those he sought to influence. ' ' 

Stephen A. Douglas declared that Lincoln had no equal 
as an advocate in the trial of a case before a jury. Leonard 
Swett, who knew him as well, if not better, than any other 
of his associates on the Circuit, has said that if Lincoln ever 
had a superior before a jury — and the more intelligent the 
jury the better he was pleased — he, Swett, never knew him. 
Mr. Swett went further and declared that in his younger days, 
he had listened to Tom Corwin, Rufus Choate, and many 
others of equal standing at the bar in the trial of cases, but 
that Lincoln at his best, was more sincere and impressive than 
any of them, and that what Lincoln could not accomplish with 
a jury no man need try. Judge David Davis — afterwards 
appointed by President Lincoln a Justice of the Supreme 
Court of the United States, and who was the presiding judge 
in the old Eighth Judicial Circuit of Illinois during the 
greater part of the time while Lincoln travelled that Circuit 
from County to County, trying cases — continually said that, 
"in all the elements that constitute the great lawyer, he had 
few equals. He was great both, at nisi prius and before an 
appellate tribunal." 

Thomas Drummond, than whom no greater trial judge ever 
sat upon the bench, declared Lincoln to be one of the ablest 
lawyers he had ever known. The testimony of these distin- 
guished men is convincing, and with the record of his pro- 
fessional career in Illinois, to which might be added a 
creditable though not very extended practice in the Federal 
Courts, should set at rest forever the statement sometimes 
made that Lincoln's standing as a lawyer was not of a high 
order — for in all which constitutes the really great lawyer, he 



THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION l63 

stood in the front rank of the profession at a time when 
many men of renown battled for supremacy at the bar; and 
he who by common consent was classed as the equal, if not 
the superior of Leonard Swett, and the other distinguished 
lawyers whom I have named, must be given high place among 
the leaders of the bar of our State. 

Had it not been that his great abilities were demanded by 
the Eepublic, in the turbulent times following 1857, there is 
no reason to doubt that the name of Abraham Lincoln, the 
lawyer, would have been known from the Atlantic to the 
Pacific and from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. 

His whole career shows that failure was a word unknown 
to his vocabulary; and prior to the repeal of the Missouri 
Compromise he was making most wonderful progress in his 
professional career; but when his coimtry demanded his 
services in that trying hour, when he saw that the iron heel 
of the slave power of the South was about to be planted upon 
the free soil of the nation, he left to others the pursuit of 
the calling of his choice at a time when that calling seemed 
more than ever inviting, and when greater professional re- 
nown was easily within his grasp, to become more than ever 
before, an advocate of the rights of the people against an 
aristocracy founded upon hiunan slavery. 

"What followed is a matter of familiar history. Abraham 
Lincoln, the lawyer of Illinois, became the great restorer of 
the Union of the States, and the work of the lawyer was over- 
shadowed by the greater labors and accomplishments of Abra- 
ham Lincoln, the emancipator of a race, and the saviour of 
his country. Had he lived to witness the realization of the 
vision which he saw and so beautifully expressed in his First 
Inaugural Address, when "The mystic chords of memory, 
stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every 
living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will 
yet swell the Chorus of the Union, when touched again, as they 
surely will be, by the better angels of our nature," Abraham 
Lincoln would have proven himself to be the greatest consti- 
tutional lawyer of the nineteenth century, and many of the 
mistakes and horrors of the reconstruction period, I firmly 



164 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

believe, would have been unknown to our country's history. 
He would have proceeded "with malice toward none, but 
charity for all," to "bind up the nation's wounds"; and by 
constitutional government many of the conflicts which have 
left a blot upon the escutcheon of our national honor, would 
have been avoided and jewels of still greater brilliancy would 
have been thereby placed upon the brow of the greatest ruler 
of modern times, if not the greatest of the ages. 



THE EVOLUTION OF THE GETTYSBURG ADDRESS 

HON. JOHN C. RICHBEEG 

FROM Abraham Lincoln's entrance into public life to his 
sacrificial exit was probably the stormiest period of the 
Republic, during all of which time the slavery question was 
uppermost. But underlying this controversy lay the great 
question of State's rights, the extremists insisting that the 
Union was a mere confederacy of States, that the States were 
absolutely sovereign and any State had a right to withdraw 
from the Union at any time its people saw fit so to do. Lin- 
coln was opposed both to slavery and the doctrine of State's 
rights, as enunciated, believing in an inseparable and inde- 
structible LTnion ; and it may be interesting to trace the 
gradual growth and strengthening of his belief which cul- 
minated in that mighty appeal to the spirit of nationality 
known as the Gettysburg Address. 

It will be borne in mind that Lincoln had been a member 
of the Illinois Legislature for four successive terms and 
entered upon the scene of national politics in 1847, at the 
age of thirty-eight, as a member of Congress. Although a 
new member, he was not a silent member, and took part in 
the debates affecting the leading questions of the day. He 
had been practising law for some ten years, and his speeches 
in Congress, especially the one against granting appropria- 
tions for internal improvements on constitutional grounds, 
showed that he had studied the works of Kent and Storey and 
the leading cases of the Supreme Court of the United States, 
notably those delivered by Mr. Chief Justice Marshall. He 
had taken an active part in politics during the administration 
of Andrew Jackson and especially in the great controversy 
then raging with reference to the Charter of the United States 
Bank. That Charter had been upheld in 1819 by the Supreme 

165 



166 ABRAHAM LINXOLN 

Court of the United States in the opinion delivered by Chief 
Justice Marshall in the celebrated case of M'Culloch v. State 
of Maryland. The question involved as to whether Congress 
had power to incorporate a bank, and the holding of the Court 
that the government of the Union is supreme within its sphere 
of action, and that its laws, when made in pursuance of the 
Constitution, are the supreme law of the land, are of course 
familiar to all here present. 

Lincoln said, in a speech delivered in Congress, July 27, 
1848: 

"When the bill chartering the first Bank of the United States passed 
Congress, its constitutionality was questioned. Mr. Madison, then in 
the House of Representatives, as well as others, had opposed it on 
that ground. Gen. Washington, as President, was called on to ap- 
prove or reject it. He sought and obtained, on the constitutional 
question, the separate written opinions of Jefferson, Hamilton, and Ed- 
mund Randolph, they then being respectively Secretary of State, Sec- 
retary of the Treasury, and Attorney-General. Hamilton's opinion was 
for the power; while Randolph's and Jefferson's were both against it." 

In a reply to Douglas, delivered at Springfield, Illi- 
nois, June 26, 1857, he again showed how familiar he was 
with the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, 
wherein the question of the constitutionality of the Act estab- 
lishing the Bank of the United States was involved ; that he 
had not only read, but studied that decision. He said : 

"Why, this same Supreme Court once decided a national bank to be 
constitutional; but General Jackson, as President of the United States, 
disregarded the decision, and vetoed a bill for a re-charter, partly on 
constitutional grounds, declaring that each public functionary must 
support the Constitution, 'as he understands it.' But hear the Gen- 
eral's own words. Here they are, taken from his veto message: 

" 'It is maintained by the advocates of the Bank, that its constitution- 
ality, in all its features, ought to be considered as settled by prec- 
edent, and by the decision of the Supreme Court. To this conclusion 
I cannot assent. Mere precedent is a dangerous source of authority, 
and should not be regarded as deciding questions of constitutional 
power, except where the acquiescence of the people and the States 
can be considered as well settled. So far from this being the case on 
this subject, an argument against the bank might be based on prec- 
edent. One Congress, in 1791, decided in favor of a bank; another. 



THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION l67 

in 1811, decided against it. One Congress, in 1815, decided against a 
bank; another, in 1816, decided in its favor. Prior to the present 
Congress, therefore, the precedents drawn from that source were equal. 
If we resort to the States, the expressions of legislative, judicial, ami 
executive opinions against the bank have been, probably, to those in 
its favor as four to one. There is nothing in precedent, therefore, 
which, if its authority were admitted, ought to weigh in favor of the 
act before me.' 

"I drop the quotations merely to remark, that all there ever was, 
in the way of precedent, up to the Dred Scott decision, on the points 
therein decided, had been against that decision. . . . 

"Again and again have I heard Judge Douglas denounce that bank 
decision, and applaud General Jackson for disregarding it. It would 
be interesting for him to look over his recent speech and see how 
exactly his fierce philippics against us for resisting the Supreme 
Court decisions, fall upon his own head. It will call to mind a long 
and fierce political war in this country, upon an issue which, in his 
own language, and, of course, in his own changeless estimation, was 
'a distinct issue between the friends and the enemies of the Constitu- 
tion,' and in which war he fought in the ranks of the enemies of the 
Constitution." 

It is evident that the doctrine of national unity as laid 
down in the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United 
States, and particularly in the opinion of Marshall, had either 
awakened or found a responsive chord within the keen, logical, 
lawyer's mind of the martyred President. How early this 
conviction obtained is shown in a lecture delivered at the 
Springfield Lyceum in 1837, where Lincoln said : 

"If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and fin- 
isher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die 
by suicide." 

At Indianapolis, on his way to the Capital in 1861, refer- 
ring to South Carolinians, he said : 

"In their view, the Union as a family relation would seem to be 
no regular marriage, but rather a sort of 'free-love' arrangement, to 
be maintained only on 'passional attraction.' " 

At Trenton, New 'Jersey : 

"I am exceedingly anxious that this Union, the Constitution and the 
liberties of the people shall be perpetuated in accordance with the 
original idea for which that struggle [the Revolution] was made." 



168 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

At Philadelphia, at the ''Old Independence Hall," among 
other things, in responding to an address of welcome : 

"I can say in return, sir, that all the political sentiments I enter- 
tain have been drawn, so far as I have been able to draw them, from 
the sentiments which originated in and were given to the world from 
this hall." 

In his First Inaugural Address, he said : 

"I hold that, in contemplation of universal lav? and the Constitution, 
the Union of these States is perpetual. Perpetuity is implied, if not 
expressed, in the fundamental law of all national governments. It is 
safe to assert that no government proper ever had a provision in its 
organic law for its own termination. Continue to execute all the ex- 
press provisions of our national Constitution and the Union will endure 
forever — it being impossible to destroy it except by some action not pro- 
vided for in the instrument itself." 

On August 22, 1862, in a letter to Horace Greeley, he said: 

"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is 
not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union with- 
out freeing any slave, I would do it; if I could save it by freeing all 
the slaves, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and 
leaving others alone, I would also do that." 

"What I do about slavery and the colored race, I do because I be- 
lieve it helps to save the Union ; and what I forbear, I forbear be- 
cause I do not believe it would help to save the Union." 

Since, then, the national spirit shown in the foregoing quo- 
tations seems to have been founded so much more on the law- 
yer's view of the Constitution as a sacred compact that the 
descendants of the framers must fulfil, rather than on a mere 
emotional ideal, it may be worth while to examine the language 
of that great decision in M'Culloch v. Maryland, referred to 
before, wherein is found the logic and reasoning which, har- 
monizing with Lincoln's fidelity to obligations and the ideal- 
ism of a mighty dreamer, may have played its part in the 
evolution of the Gettysburg masterpiece. 

Beginning with page 403, Volume 4, Wheaton's Keports, 
the opinion reads as follows : 

"The Convention which framed the Constitution was indeed elected 
by the State Legislatures. But the instrument, when it came from 



THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION l69 

their hands, was a mere proposal, without obligation, or pretensions 
to it. It was reported to the then existing Congress of the United 
States, with a request that it might 'be submitted to a Convention of 
Delegates, chosen in each State by the people thereof, under the 
recommendation of its Legislature, for their assent and ratification.' 
This mode of proceeding was adopted; and by the Convention, by 
Congress, and by the State Legislatures, the instrument was submitted 
to the people. They acted upon it in the only manner in which they 
can act safely, effectively, and wisely, on such a subject, by assembling 
in Convention. It is true, they assembled in their several States — 
and where else should they have assembled? No political dreamer 
was ever wild enough to think of breaking down the lines which 
separate the States, and of compounding the American people into one 
common mass. Of consequence, when they act, they act in their 
States. But the measures they adopt do not, on that account, cease to 
be the measures of the people themselves, or become the measures of 
the State governments. 

"From these Conventions the Constitution derives its whole authority. 
The government proceeds directly from the people; is 'ordained and 
established' in the name of the people; and is declared to be ordained, 
'in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domes- 
tic tranquillity, and secure the blessings of liberty to themselves and 
to their posterity.' The assent of the States, in their sovereign ca- 
pacity, is implied in calling a Convention, and thus submitting that 
instrument to the people. But the people were at perfect liberty to 
accept or reject it ; and their act was final. It required not the af- 
firmance, and could not be negatived, by the State governments. The 
Constitution, when thus adopted, was of complete obligation, and 
bound the State sovereignties. But when, 'in order to form a more 
perfect union,' it was deemed necessary to change this alliance into 
an effective government, possessing great and sovereign powers, and 
acting directly on the people, the necessity of referring it to the peo- 
ple, and of deriving its powers from them, was felt and acknowledged 
by all. 

"The government of the Union, then (whatever may be the in- 
fluence of this fact on the case), is, emphatically, and truly, a govern- 
ment of the people. In form and in substance it emanates from them. 
Its powers are granted by them, and are to be exercised directly on 
them, and for their benefit. But the question respecting the extent of 
the powers actually granted, is perpetually arising, and will probably 
continue to arise, as long as our system shall exist." 

"If any one proposition could command the universal assent of 
mankind, we might expect it would be this — that the government of 
the Union, though limited in its powers, is supreme within its sphere 
of action. This would seem to result necessarily from its nature. It 



170 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

is the government of all; its powers are delegated by all; it represents 
all, and acta for all." 

Such was the opinion of the greatest nationalist Judge, 
laying down the law of what should he, to make a nation. 
Following up his steps and passing far beyond, came the great- 
est nationalist Executive, with a firm hand, holding together 
warring elements with power, wisdom, and patience, welding 
them strongly together, so that in a day when his eyes had 
long been closed, that which the great Judge had said should 
be, should be made to be. Over the silent forms of those fallen 
in the most terrible conflict of the long struggle for the per- 
petuation of the nation, the great Executive carried forward 
the reasoning of the great Judge — away from the bloodless 
language of law into words filled with the ichor of the love of 
mankind, into words immortal with unquestioning faith : 

"It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining 
before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion 
to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — 
that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have^ied in vain; 
that the nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that 
a government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not 
perish from the earth." 



THE MERIT OF A MIGHTY NAME 

JUDGE W. G. EWING 

THE people of America exalt themselves in the estimation 
of all civilization by honoring the memory of Abraham 
Lincoln, for even now, scarce half a century distant from the 
Titanic struggle in which his splendor dawned, there is more 
of honest merit in his mighty name than ever bore the burdens 
of a crown, or through slaughter won a throne. Martin Luther 
waited nearly three centuries for the full recognition of his 
mighty achievement ; and Shakespeare nearly a century longer 
for the universal acclaim of his splendid genius ; and so with 
scores of others whose great names now belong to the rich 
heritage of the world. The rule through all history seems to 
be that it is "Time that sets all things even," and gives to 
every man his own, but in the instance of the great Lincoln, 
an awakened sense of justice superseded Time, and wrote his 
name high on the scroll of the immortals, even while the 
Nation in tears, followed him to the grave. 

Few persons realize the brevity of Lincoln's public career, 
or at least his public life in any national sense. It is limited 
to seven brief years. There are several men in this audience 
to-night who have a larger inter-State acquaintance, a more 
extensive law practice and as much professional reputation 
as Lincoln had at the time of his debate with Douglas. That 
debate gave him a national reputation; his Cooper Union 
speech a year later, gave an international reputation ; the 
year following came the presidency, and four years later, his 
assassination — thus in seven short years this marvellous man 
passed from the seclusion of a private citizen in a frontier 
town, to imperishable renown. 

I have been much impressed with Lincoln's uniqueness 
in this— he was the only occupant of the presidential office 

171 



172 ABRAHAM LINCOLN" 

to whom the presidency gave lasting distinction. The really 
great men who have held that office, such as Washington, 
John Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Jackson, Grant, all had 
achieved enduring fame before the presidency came to them, 
and would have lived as long in history and the grateful 
memory of men without the presidency, as with it. But 
that office was Lincoln's opportunity; he went to it from 
comparative obscurity, and in four short years, by virtue of 
the power of his position, achieved immortality. The pres- 
idential office did not make him great; it found him great — 
as great in his humble Springfield home as in the Nation's 
capital — but the presidency gave to him the opportunity to 
demonstrate his greatness — inherent greatness. It is notice- 
able to us all that the magnet which attracts the world to 
Lincoln to-day, is exactly the qualities of mind and heart — 
intelligence, gentleness, humanity, and sincerity — which he 
manifested among his associates, from his flat-boat experience 
to his residence in the White House. 

On the annual recurrence of this day, the youth of America 
should be taught the beautiful story of a life begun in pov- 
erty, sustained by constant struggle, and yet inseparably in- 
terwoven with the most heroic efforts of men, for men — a life 
replete with lessons of industry, economy, sobriety, and in- 
tegrity, illustrating in the fullest degree the possibilities 
that are open under republican government to every earnest, 
honest child, to rise from the lowliest walks of life to the very 
palisades of enduring fame. 

No young man can study the life of Lincoln from child- 
hood to his assassination, without being impressed with its 
beauty, simplicity, and moral grandeur and feeling the 
promptings of a laudable ambition to so order his own life 
that he may leave the world wiser and happier and better for 
having lived in it. 

Lincoln's character was many sided, and every phase of it 
was a manifestation of strength, if not of absolute greatness; 
that peculiarity which at one time some people thought weak 
and frivolous in his heroic combination, namely, the love of 
the humorous, the "baiting place of wit," is now, I believe, 



THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 173 

regarded by all thoughtful and candid men, as the only sur- 
cease from anxious, troubling thought that visited his sad and 
earnest life. To my mind it is clear, that the humorous 
phase of Lincoln's character was one of the secrets of his 
marvellous power — was the ready, and possibly the best, means 
of securing for his most serious thought and real purpose, 
the consideration of the common people; for it must be con- 
stantly borne in mind that he was in fact not only a very 
serious and thoughtful, but sometimes a much depressed man ; 
and if he sometimes caused the people to laugh, it was that 
he might compel them to think. His object was not mirth, 
but thought ; and thousands of times I doubt not, he has said 
to his own sad heart, — 

"If I laugh at any mortal thing, 
'T is that I may not weep." 

Genius never needs an introduction to itself. Lincoln could 
not have been unconscious of his wonderful talent and power 
as a leader of men. When in 1858 he applied to the un- 
fortunate condition of American institutions the scriptural 
saying, ''A house divided against itself cannot stand," he 
heard, even then, the distant rumble of Freedom's gathering 
hosts, and when, a moment later, he added, "I do not expect 
the house to fall, but I do expect it will cease to be di- 
vided," who can question that his prophetic soul foresaw 
the end from the beginning, and possibly his own great part 
in the gigantic struggle that was to enthrone Freedom, and 
mark the dawn of a splendid era in the civilization of the 
world ? 

His life was cast in a crucial period of the world's history, 
during a time when a great moral principle — greater than 
any man, as great as all men — was struggling for universal 
recognition, the principle of the equal right of all men to life 
and liberty, he became involved in the struggle, gave to it 
his best thought, his highest endeavor, and finally the prin- 
ciple took possession of him and dominated his life. Taken 
for all in all, tested by the highest standard of true greatness, 
history must accord to Abraham Lincoln a place second to 



174 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

that of no one of the century that gave him birth — an era 
without parallel in the development of art and science; rich 
in invention, statesmanship, philosophy, oratory, and song; 
the era of Von Moltke, Humboldt, Bismarck, Hugo, Browning, 
Carlyle, Gladstone, Sumner, Douglas, Beecher, Emerson, 
Grant. Surely, for one to attract with a splendor all his 
own, in such a galaxy of learning and genius, is an absolute 
demonstration of greatness. 

We cannot, however, contemplate the life and character of 
Lincoln without realizing the fact that his greatness could 
not have been made manifest to the world, but for the unre- 
mitting discussion of human rights by the Garrisons and 
Greeleys and Sumners and Lovejoys and John Browns. 

The old line Abolitionists of fifty years ago, were the 
marked and masterful men of their time ; once hated, derided, 
and shunned as "the pestilence that walketh in darkness and 
the destruction that wasteth at noonday," these faithful van- 
guardsmen of freedom patiently bided their time; with faith 
in God and faith in humanity, they ''bore the cross, endured 
the shame," and through threatening and slaughter "pressed 
forward to the mark of the prize" of their high calling, and 
now dwell serenely in the world's abiding gratitude and love. 

In the presence of these great names, I bend my heart to 
its knees. They were men of but one idea ; but that idea en- 
compassed a whole race then in bondage ; it was as broad as the 
universe of God; it comprehended the spirit of universal 
liberty; it gilded with a fadeless splendor American man- 
hood ; it gave as a heritage to immortality that transcendent 
composite of greatness and goodness, of genius and gentle- 
ness, of sublimity and simplicity — Abraham Lincoln. 



POWER IN LONELINESS 

JUDGE PETER STENGER GROSSCUP 

THERE has been no narrative of Lincoln 's life yet written 
that one feels to be adequate ; no adequate portrayal of 
his character ; no adequate portrayal of his face. Behind the 
life, and the character, and the face that we associate with 
Lincoln, as behind the stars that stand out in the depths of 
the night, a vaster depth extends that makes of what we see 
a faint impression only of what we feel must be behind — 
that links that figure into the mysterious order of the universe. 
And yet, ''born in Kentucky, February 12, 1809; reared in 
Indiana; practised law in Illinois; was in Legislature and 
in Congress one term" — such would have been the mention 
of the name, "Abraham Lincoln," in any short "History of 
Illinois," and no mention at all in any other "History," had 
Lincoln died at the present age of President Roosevelt. 

Slavery was the nation's inherited disease. It had crept 
into our national life as disease sometimes creeps into health, 
firmly fastened before alarm is created. From the beginning, 
of course, it was a wrong — a deep injustice done by men to 
other men — and as such, aroused the conscience of thinking 
men. But from the beginning, also, it was an institution of 
the land, grown up under the law, and as such claimed the 
toleration that thinking men give, out of respect to the law. 
And for the early period of the Republic, this conscience of 
thinking men and this respect for law that thinking men 
are never without, compromised on a line that divided between 
them the continent of America. 

But as the Western half of the continent opened for settle- 
ment, the line of compromise vanished. This Western half 
was a domain belonging to the nation — to the South as well 
as to the North — and into it, carrying all that the law allowed 
them to possess at home, even as the people of the North 

175 



176 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

might carry all that the law allowed them to possess at home, 
the people of the South claimed access. "Can this be right?" 
asked conscience. "It is the law," said a majority of the 
Supreme Court, when given a chance to speak upon the mat- 
ter. The crisis had come. The public mind was brought to a 
standstill, to take a new survey of the changed situation that 
lay before it ; and upon the result of that new survey, in the 
realm of decided law in conflict with eternal human right, 
turned the destiny of America, the destiny of free govern- 
ment the world over. 

It was here that Lincoln came into the public view. For 
the mission that lay before him, his life, instead of being 
poor, had been rich in helpful circumstance. Born in the 
midst of slavery, he knew the institution on its human side, 
as the North did not know it. Reared among those who were 
poor, in the free States of Indiana and Illinois, he realized 
by experience how deeply human, also, was the consciousness 
of every man that he had a right to the bread he earned in 
the sweat of his brow. Living his life among the plain people, 
he knew that on any great matter of human right, the mind 
and the heart of the plain people the country over, being 
once aroused, were almost as one. This was the equipment 
given him by his heritage and his environment. It gave him 
what, in the preparation for a great part, is of infinitely 
more consequence than mere education or culture — a knowl- 
edge of the conditions and forces that were to be put at 
his command. And to this equipment, through circum- 
stance, he brought a self-trained intellect, honest with itself, 
that, like the work of the self-trained carpenter building his 
own house, instead of going by rote, inspects and tests, and 
carefully measures every piece before it goes finally into 
the structure — an intellect that never accepted a conclusion 
that had not been tested with the hammer of honest iniiuiry, 
to see if it rang true; and that never offered an argument 
to the people that was not tested in the same w^ay, and in 
their presence, that they, too, might see and hear that it rang 
exactly true. Indeed, the debates with Douglas, and the 
Cooper L'nion speech, are the highest examples in our his- 



THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 177 

tory, of political discussion put upon the plane of pains- 
taking, scientific, truth-seeking inquiry. And, finally, to all 
these qualities of intellect and environment, he joined an 
imagination that places him by the side of the Prophets 
of Israel ; a steadfastness of purpose that showed, even 
before the time came for its showing, that he could become 
a martyr ; and a heart for mankind, second only to the heart 
of the Saviour of mankind. 

How came that Convention in May, 1860, to find this Lin- 
coln, and then name him as the country's deliverer? Partly 
because, more than any other man living, this plain Lincoln 
of the West, in the Lincoln-Douglas debates and in the 
Cooper Union speech, had taken hold upon the public mind. 
The public convictions that are really potential, often lie 
obscured for long reaches of time, under the repressive in- 
fluences of politics or commercial interests. But let some 
one once truthfully and courageously proclaim them — give 
voice to what, in their inner thoughts, the people themselves 
are thinking — and that man at once becomes the people's 
spokesman. It was this Western Lincoln who thus spoke. 
He stood forth the one man of his time whose intellectual 
vision accurately sized up the crisis ; the one man whose 
painstaking, honest logic brought the crisis, in all its in- 
evitability, within the comprehension of the people; the 
one man who had found clear ground on which, at one and 
the same time, to stand for the right and for the law. And 
thus it was that a troubled nation, groping its way on this 
slavery question toward the light, came to feel at last that 
it had laid hold of the hand that knew in what direction 
the light lay. 

But beyond this, Lincoln had been raised up, I believe 
providentially, for the work that awaited him ; it is the con- 
sciousness, latent in us all, that this is true, that makes any 
human portrayal of him seem inadequate— that makes what 
you see of him only an impression of what you feel must 
lie behind. I have spoken of the conditions that, before he 
was born, sowing the seeds from which his character was 
to spring, fore-ordered a man equipped for the work that 



178 ABRAHAxM LINCOLN 

awaited him. That was not mere chance. I have spoken 
of his self-trained intellect — an intellect that, trained in the 
schools, would have lost the necessity of testing, in its own 
way and for its own conscience, everything that came within 
its range; and in that loss would have been lost the strange 
power that gave to Lincoln his hold on the public mind. 
That was not mere chance. I have spoken of his love of 
Truth — his willingness always to abide by it, his fixed de- 
termination that others should be obliged to abide by it. 
That was not mere chance. There was one thing more in 
the preparation of this man for a crisis that was not mere 
chance. 

When God was raising up a leader to bring the children of 
Abraham out of the land where they were bondsmen, he 
led Moses, first as a waif into the house of the King, and 
then as a fugitive into the land of Midian, where, as a tender 
of flocks, he dwelt on the far side of the desert up against 
Mount Horeb. How long Moses was there, the desert on one 
side and the wilderness of the mountain on the other, en- 
veloped in as great a loneliness as if the whole earth were 
void of life save him and his flock, we are not told. It is 
enough to know that it was not into the King's palace, but 
into this loneliness of desert and mountain, that the divine 
spark penetrated, lighting that flame in the midst of the 
bush. 

From beginning to end, in the preparation of Lincoln for 
the work that awaited him — and then again when the work 
was actually upon him, that he might be kept equal to its 
exactions — he, too, was kept deeply enveloped in an atmos- 
phere of Aloneness. Alone as a boy, separated by tragedy 
from his father's companionship, and by poverty from the 
companionship of those who would have interested him; alone 
as a young man in an Indiana clearing, hearing no voice of 
neighbor for weeks at a time, except the distant axe as it 
fell in muffled notes in the woodland beyond ; alone as a 
grown man, pathetically out of place between the barrels 
and the counter of a country store, patiently striving to 
find his place, as, buried in the grasses of the wide and lonely 



THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 179 

prairie, he lapped up every pool of knowledge on which he 
chanced— Euclid 's Geometry, Clay's Speeches, Blackstone 
— devouring every book that came his way, simply from thirst 
for knowledge, without settled purpose, or settled order ; alone 
as President— that one brain and that one heart charged 
with responsibility for each recurring phase of a mighty war, 
and for each recurring problem of the nation's peace, 
charged with responsibility to God and all mankind that free 
government should not perish from the earth — Oh, the lone- 
liness of Lincoln, the tragic loneliness of that great life! 
Destined, in the very nature of his burden, to walk alone 
always — wherever he was, on frontier or in the Capital, the 
world pushed back — that into the stillness of the one life, 
upon whom such destiny depended, no influence should enter 
that came not laden with the wisdom of the Eternal One ! 

Saint-Gaudens has caught this phase of this great life 
in the statue shortly to be erected here in Grant Park. 
Seated in the chair of state, one of his long hands reaching 
well out on one of the long legs, the furrowed homely face 
drawn into itself in deep meditation, is the figure of the 
President; and at effective distance on either side, to mark 
off the isolation of this figure from the world, rise two tall 
marble columns. To those of us who have seen the monu- 
ment set up, in its entirety, at Saint-Gaudens 's home at 
Cornish, the portrayal is complete — Lincoln living in bronze, 
as Lincoln lived his life, Power in Loneliness. 

And here, as long as this city stands, will this figure of 
Lincoln endure. He is no longer alone. Before him stretches 
the city. Around him is the nation. Above him are the 
skies. Behind him an inland sea, stretching away to the 
sky. Around him play the winds. On his brow alight mes- 
sengers from the sun. The waves speak to him from the 
deep, the birds from the air. On every side, as in the flame 
of fire out of the bush, God speaks. He is not alone. Lin- 
coln, living, was not alone. "Where God is, man is not alone.. 



THE SPRINGFIELD COMMEMORATION 



THE SPRINGFIELD COMMEMORATION 

THE City of Springfield, Illinois, had a peculiar interest 
in the Lincoln Centenary, and made unusual efforts to 
observe it in a fitting manner; for it was at Springfield that 
Lincoln lived for many years ; here that he practised his 
profession; and here, on the eve of his departure for Wash- 
ington as President, that he delivered that wonderful Fare- 
well Speech to his fellow-townsmen — a speech which was 
almost a prophetic recognition of the fact that he was to 
return no more. 

The celebration at Springfield was undertaken by an asso- 
ciation of prominent men, who for the purposes of properly 
observing the Centenary incorporated themselves under the 
name of the Lincoln Centennial Association. The officers of 
the association were : Hon. J. Otis Humphrey, President ; 
John W. Bunn, Vice-President; Philip Barton "Warren, Sec- 
retary; and J. H. Holbrook, Treasurer. 

To act with the Lincoln Centennial Association in the 
proper observance of the day by Springfield, Hon. Charles 
S. Deneen, Governor of Illinois, appointed a State Committee, 
with Hon. James A. Connolly as President. These two bodies 
cooperated in securing the necessary funds for an elaborate 
commemoration of the Centenary, and in the plans for the 
impressive programme which resulted. 

The day was marked first by the morning pilgrimage of 
the notable guests from away — impressively escorted — to the 
old Lincoln home, past the Court House where Lincoln prac- 
tised law, by the building where his ofiSce was located, to the 
church where he worshipped, and where his name yet ap- 
pears upon the pew he occupied, and to the burial place of 
the great War President. At the tomb of Lincoln, old sol- 
diers who had responded to Lincoln's call to arms, stood 
guard with bayonets. 

183 " 



184 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

In the afternoon, a mammoth meeting was held in the big 
tabernacle, into which crowded eight thousand people, while 
thousands more were turned away. Addresses were delivered 
by Hon. William J. Bryan, and by Senator Jonathan P. 
Dolliver, with informal speeches by the French and English 
Ambassadors. 

The main celebration of the Centennial day took form in a 
great banquet under State auspices, held in the State Arsenal 
on the evening of the Centenary. Gathered there were the 
Governor, various State officers, and representative organiza- 
tions, not only from all parts of the State, but from the con- 
fines of the country. Over seven hundred men sat down to 
the beautifully decorated tables, beneath waving flags and 
bunting, while the galleries above were made gay with groups 
of notable spectators. 'Judge 'J. Otis Humphrey acted as 
toastmaster of the evening ; Governor Deneen spoke on behalf 
of the State of Illinois. The formal addresses of the evening 
were by H. E. the British Ambassador, Honorable James 
Bryce, and H. E. the French Ambassador, Jean A. A. J, 
'Jusserand ; while informal speeches were delivered by Sena- 
tor Dolliver of Iowa, and by Mr. Bryan. 

A unique feature of the day's exercises was the reception 
given in the old Lincoln home by the Springfield Chapter 
of The Daughters of the American Revolution, in honor of 
Mrs. Donald McLean of New York, President-General of the 
national organization; Mrs, E. S. Walker, Chapter-Regent, 
being the hostess in charge. The appointments of the dining- 
room in which refreshments were served were entirely in 
keeping with the period in which Lincoln lived, and the silver- 
ware, table linen, glass, and china-ware were those used by 
Lincoln, being now the property of either the Lincoln or 
Edwards family, or of their most intimate friends. The 
cloth used on the table was the one used at the wedding sup- 
per of Abraham Lincoln and his bride, while the various 
dishes, urns, trays, and epergnes each claimed some historical 
significance. Many distinguished guests were present, in- 
cluding our old War President's son, Robert T. Lincoln. The 
reception was followed by a banquet for the members of The 



THE SPRINGFIELD COMMEMORATION 185 

Daughters of the American Revolution and their guests of 
honor, at the Y, M. C. A. building. 

In the rooms of the Illinois Historical Society, an imposing 
exhibit of Lincolniana was opened to the public. The negroes 
of the city held a separate meeting of their own in honor of 
the day, while at the various churches and schools the Cen- 
tenary was reverently observed. The Springfield Commemo- 
ration was an achievement and a tribute, of most significant 
proportions. 



LINCOLN AS AN ORATOR 

HON. WILLIAM J. BRYAN 

LINCOLN'S fame as a statesman and as the nation's 
chief executive during its most crucial period, has so 
overshadowed his fame as an orator that his merits as a 
public speaker have not been sufficiently emphasized. When 
it is remembered that his nomination was directly due to 
the prominence which he won upon the stump; that in a 
most remarkable series of debates he held his own against 
one of the most brilliant orators America has produced; 
and that to his speeches, more than to the arguments of any 
other one man, or in fact of all other public men combined, 
was due the success of his party — when all these facts are 
borne in mind, it will appear plain, even to the casual ob- 
server, that too little attention has been given to the extraor- 
dinary power which he exercised as a speaker. That his 
nomination was due to the effect that his speeches produced, 
can not be disputed. When he began his fight against slavery 
in 1854, he was but little known outside of the counties in 
which he attended court. It is true that he had been a mem- 
ber of Congress some years before, but at that time he was 
not stirred by any great emotion or connected with the dis- 
cussion of any important theme, and he made but little im- 
pression upon national politics. The threatened extension 
of slavery, however, aroused him, and with a cause which 



186 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

justified his best efforts he threw his whole soul into the 
fight. The debates with Douglas have never had a parallel 
in this, or, so far as history shows, in any other country. 

In engaging in this contest with Douglas he met a foe- 
man worthy of his steel, for Douglas had gained a deserved 
reputation as a great debater, and recognized that his future 
depended upon the success with which he met the attacks 
of Lincoln. On one side an institution supported by history 
and tradition, and on the other a growing sentiment against 
the holding of a human being in bondage — these presented 
a supreme issue. Douglas won the senatorial seat for which 
the two at that time had contested, but Lincoln won a larger 
victory — he helped to mould the sentiment that was dividing 
parties and re-arranging the political map of the country. 
When the debates were concluded, every one recognized 
him as the leader of the cause which he had espoused; and 
it was a recognition of this leadership w^hich he had secured 
through his public speeches, that enabled him, a Western 
man, to be nominated over the Eastern candidates — not only 
a Western man, but a man lacking in book learning and the 
polish of the schools. No other American President has ever 
so clearly owed his elevation to his oratory. Washington, 
Jefferson, and Jackson, the Presidents usually mentioned in 
connection with him, were all poor speakers. 

In analyzing Lincoln's characteristics as a speaker, one 
is impressed with the completeness of his equipment. He 
possessed the two things that are absolutely essential to 
effective speaking — namely, information and earnestness. If 
one can be called eloquent who knows what he is talking 
about and means what he says — and I know of no better 
definition — Lincoln's speeches were eloquent. He was thor- 
oughly informed upon the subject; he was prepared to meet 
his opponent upon the general proposition discussed, and 
upon any deductions which could be drawn from it. There 
was no unexplored field into which his adversary could lead 
him ; he had carefully examined every foot of the ground 
and was not afraid of pitfall or ambush, and, what was 
equally important, he spoke from his own heart to the hearts 




(•<i/,iir''l!il. I: 



hij L (I Miill,-r 



Bronze Bas-Relicf of Lincoln hv (". Pickett 



(The sculptor worked with Leonard W. Volk, of f'hicat 
liis famous deatli-iiia>k of Lincoln) 



known for 



THE SPRINGFIELD COMMEMORATION 187 

of those who listened. While the printed page can not fully 
reproduce the impressions made by a voice trembling with 
emotion or tender with pathos, one can not read the reports 
of the debates without feeling that Lincoln regarded the sub- 
ject as far transcending the ambitions or the personal in- 
terests of the debaters. It was of little moment, he said, 
whether they voted him or 'Judge Douglas up or down, but 
it was tremendously important that the question should be 
decided rightly. His reputation may have suffered in the 
opinion of some, because he made them think so deeply upon 
what he said, that they, for the moment, forgot him alto- 
gether, and yet is this not the very perfection of speech? 
It is the purpose of the orator to persuade and, to do this, 
he presents not himself but his subject. Someone in de- 
scribing the difference between Demosthenes and Cicero said 
that "when Cicero spoke, people said, 'How well Cicero 
speaks,' but when Demosthenes spoke, they said, 'Let us go 
against Philip'." In proportion as one can forget himself 
and become wholly absorbed in the cause which he is present- 
ing, does he measure up to the requirements of oratory. 

In addition to the two essentials, Lincoln possessed what 
may be called the secondary aids to oratory. He was a mas- 
ter of statement. Few have equalled him in the ability to 
strip a truth of surplus verbiage and present it in its naked 
strength. In the Declaration of Independence we read that 
there are certain self-evident truths, which are therein enu- 
merated. If I were going to amend the proposition, I would 
say that all truth is self-evident. Not that any truth will 
be universally accepted, for not all are in a position or in 
an attitude to accept any given truth. In the interpretation 
of the "Parable of the Sower," we are told that "the cares 
of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the 
truth," and it must be acknowledged that every truth has 
these or other difficulties to contend with. But a truth may 
be so clearlj^ stated that it will commend itself to anyone 
who has not some special reason for rejecting it. 

No one has more clearly stated the fundamental objections 
to slavery than Lincoln stated them, and he had a great ad- 



188 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

vantage over his opponent in being able to state those ob- 
jections frankly, for Judge Douglas neither denounced nor 
defended slavery as an institution — his plan embodied a com- 
promise, and he could not discuss slavery upon its merits 
without alienating either the slave-owner or the abolitionist. 

Brevity is the soul of wit, and a part of Lincoln's reputa- 
tion for wit lies in his ability to condense a great deal into 
a few words. He was epigrammatic. A moulder of thought 
is not necessarily an originator of the thought moulded. Just 
as lead, moulded into the form of bullets, has its effectiveness 
increased, so thought may have its propagating power enor- 
mously increased by being moulded into a form that the eye 
catches and the memory holds. Lincoln was the spokesman 
of his party — he gave felicitous expression to the thoughts 
of his followers. 

His Gettysburg speech is not surpassed, if equalled, in 
beauty, simplicity, force, and appropriateness by any speech 
of the same length of any language. It is the world's model 
in eloquence, elegance, and condensation. He might safely 
rest his reputation as an orator on that speech alone. 

He was apt in illustration — no one more so. A simple 
story or simile drawn from everyday life flashed before his 
hearers the argument that he wanted to present. He did 
not speak over the heads of his hearers, and yet his language 
was never commonplace. There is strength in simplicity, 
and Lincoln's style was simplicity itself. 

He understood the power of the interrogatory, for some 
of his most powerful arguments were condensed into ques- 
tions. Of all those who discussed the evils of separation 
and the advantages to be derived from the preservation of 
the Union, no one ever put the matter more forcibly than 
Lincoln did when, referring to the possibility of war and the 
certainty of peace some time, even if the Union was divided, 
he called attention to the fact that the same question would 
have to be dealt with, and then asked, "Can enemies make 
treaties easier than friends can make laws?" 

He made frequent use of Bible language and of illustra- 
tions drawn from Holy Writ. It is said that when he was 



THE SPRINGFIELD COMMEMORATION 189 

preparing his Springfield speech of 1858 he spent hours try- 
ing to find language that would express the idea that dom- 
inated his entire career, namely, that a Republic could not 
permanently endure half free and half slave ; and that finally 
a Bible passage flashed through his mind, and he exclaimed, 
"1 have found it" — "If a house be divided against itself, 
that house can not stand," and probably no other Bible 
passage ever exerted as much influence as this one in the 
settlement of a great controversy. 

I have enumerated some — not all, but the more important 
— of his characteristics as an orator, and on this day I venture 
for the moment to turn the thoughts of this audience away 
from the great work that he accomplished as a patriot, away 
from his achievements in the line of statecraft, to the means 
employed by him to bring before the public the ideas which 
attracted attention to him. His power as a public speaker 
was the foundation of his success, and while it is obscured 
by the superstructure that was reared upon it, it can not be 
entirely overlooked as the returning anniversary of his birth 
calls increasing attention to the widening influence of his 
work. With no military career to dazzle the eye or excite 
the imagination ; w ith no public service to make his name 
familiar to the reading public, his elevation to the presidency 
would have been impossible without his oratory. The elo- 
quence of Demosthenes and Cicero were no more necessary 
to their work, and Lincoln deserves to have his name written 
on the scroll with theirs. 



LINCOLN AS FRANCE SAW HIM 

HON. JEAN ADRIEN JUSSERAND 

ON two tragic occasions, at a century's distance, the fate 
of this country has trembled in the balance — would it be 
a free nation ? would it continue to be one nation ? A leader 
was wanted on both occasions, a very different one in each 
case. This boon from above was granted to the American 
people, who had a Washington when a Washington was 
needed, and a Lincoln when a Lincoln could save them. Both 
had enemies, both had doubters, but both were recognized by 
all open-minded people, and above all by the nation at large, 
as the men to shape the nation's destinies. 

When the Marquis de Chastellux came to America as chief 
of the staff in the Army of Rochambeau, his first thought was 
to go to see his friend La Fayette, and at the same time 
Washington. He has noted in his ''Memoires" what were, 
on first sight, his impressions of the not yet victorious, not 
yet triumphant, not yet universally admired American patriot. 
"I saw," he said, "M. de La Fayette talking in the yard with 
a tall man of five feet nine inches, of noble mien and sweet 
face. It was the General himself. I dismounted and soon 
felt myself at my ease by the side of the greatest and best of 
all men. All who meet him trust him ; but no one is familiar 
with him, because the sentiment he inspires in all has ever 
the same cause — a profound esteem for his virtues, and the 
highest opinion of his talents." So wrote a foreigner who 
was not La Fayette, who suddenly found himself face to face 
with the great man. Any chance comer, any passer-by would 
have been similarly impressed. He inspired confidence, and 
those who saw him felt that the fate of the country was in 
safe hands. 

Nearly a century of gradually increasing prosperity had 

190 



THE SPRINGFIELD COMMEMORATION 191 

elapsed when came the hour of the nation's second trial. 
Though it may seem to us a small matter compared with what 
we have seen since, the development had been considerable ; 
the scattered colonies of yore had become a great nation ; yet 
now it seemed as if all was again in doubt. The nation was 
young, wealthy, powerful, prosperous; it had immense do- 
mains and resources ; yet it seemed that her fate was doomed 
to parallel those of the old empires described by Tacitus, and 
by Raleigh after him, which, without foes, crumble to pieces 
under their own weight. "Within her own frontiers, elements 
of destruction or disruption had been growing; hatreds were 
engendered between people equally brave, bold, and sure of 
their rights. The edifice raised by Washington was shaking 
on its base ; a catastrophe was at hand. Then it was that in 
a middle-sized, not yet world-famous town — Chicago by name 
— the Republican Convention, called there for the first time, 
met to choose a candidate for the presidency. It has met 
there again since and has made, each time, a remarkable 
choice. In 1860 it chose a man whom my predecessor of 
those days, announcing the news to his Government, described 
as "a man almost unknown, Mr. Abraham Lincoln." Almost 
unknown was he indeed, at home as well as abroad, and the 
news of his election was received with anxiety. 

My country, France, was then governed by Napoleon III; 
all liberals had their eyes fixed on America. Your example 
was the great example which gave heart to our most progres- 
sive men. You had proved that Republican government was 
possible, by having one. If it broke to pieces, so would the 
hopes of all those among us who expected that one day we 
should have done the same. And the partisans of autocracy 
were loud in their assertion that a Republic was well and 
good for a country without enemies or neighbors; but that if 
a storm arose, it would be shattered. A storm had arisen, 
and the helm had been placed in the hands of that "man al- 
most unknown, Mr. Abraham Lincoln." 

"We still remember," wrote years later the illustrious French writer, 
Pr^vost-Paradol, "the uneasiness with which we awaited the first words 
of that President, then unknown, upon whom a heavy task had fallea, 



192 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

and from whose advent to power might be dated the ruin or regenera- 
tion of his country. All we knew was that he had sprung from the 
humblest walks of life, that his youth had been spent in manual labor; 
that he had risen by degrees in his town, in his county, and in his 
State. What was this favorite of the people? Democratic societies 
are liable to errors which are fatal to them. But as soon as Mr. 
Lincoln arrived in Washington, as soon as he spoke, all our doubts 
and fears were dissipated; and it seemed to us that fate itself had 
pronounced in favor of the good cause, since, in such an emergency, 
it had given to the country an honest man." 

For Prevost-Paradol and for millions of others, the first 
words — the now famous Inaugural Address — had been what 
a first glance at Washington was for Chastellux, a revelation 
that the man was a Man, a great and honest one, and that 
once more the fate of the country, at an awful period, had 
been placed in safe hands. 

Well indeed might people have wondered and felt anxious 
when they remembered how little training in great affairs 
the new ruler had had, and the incredible difficulty of the 
problems he would have to solve — to solve, his heart bleeding 
at the very thought, for he had to fight — not enemies, but 
friends. ( ' ' We must not be enemies. ' ' ) 

No romance of adventure reads more like a romance than 
the true story of Lincoln's youth, and of the wanderings of 
his family from Virginia to Kentucky, from Kentucky to 
Indiana, from Indiana to the newly-formed State of Illinois; 
having first to clear a part of the forest, then to build a door- 
less, windowless cabin, with one room for all the uses of them 
all ; the whole famih^ leading the sort of a life in comparison 
with which that of Robinson Crusoe was one of sybaritic en- 
joyment. That in those trackless, neighborless, bookless parts 
of the country, under such conditions, Lincoln — the grandson 
of a man killed by the Indians, the son of a father who never 
succeeded in anything, and whose utmost literary accomplish- 
ment consisted in signing with the greatest difficulty his own 
name (an accomplishment he had in common with the father 
of Shakespeare) — could learn, could educate himself, was the 
first great wonder of his life. It showed once more that learn- 



THE SPRINGFIELD COMMEMORATION 193 

ing does not so much depend upon the master's teaching as 
upon the pupil's desire. 

But no book, no school, no talk with reiSned men, would 
have taught him what his rough life did. Confronted every 
day, and every hour of the day, with problems which had to 
be solved, he got the habit of seeing, deciding, and acting by 
himself. Accustomed, from childhood, to live surrounded by 
the unknown and to meet the unexpected, his soul learnt to 
be astonished at nothing, and, instead of losing any time in 
wondering, to seek at once the way out of the difficulty. What 
the forest, what the swamp, what the river taught Lincoln 
cannot be overestimated. After long years of it, and shorter 
years at long-vanished New Salem; here at Springfield; at 
Vandalia, the former capital, where he met some descendants 
of his precursors in the forest, the French coureurs de hois — 
almost suddenly he found himself transferred to the post of 
greatest honor and greatest danger. And what then would 
say the "man almost unknown," the backwoodsman of yester- 
day? What would he say? What did he say? The right 
thing ! 

He was accustomed not to be surprised, but to decide and 
act. And so, confronted with circumstances which were so 
extraordinary as to be new to all, he was the man least aston- 
ished in the government. His rough and shrewd instinct 
proved of better avail than the clever minds of his more re- 
fined and better instructed seconds. It was Lincoln's instinct 
which checked Seward's complicated schemes and dangerous 
calculations. Lincoln could not calculate so cleverly, but he 
could guess better. 

His instinct, his good sense, his personal disinterestedness, 
his warmth of heart for friend or foe, his high aim, led him 
through the awful years of anguish and bloodshed during 
which the number of fields decked with tombs ceaselessly in- 
creased, and no one knew whether there would be one powerful 
nation or two weaker ones, the odds were so great. They 
led him through the worst and through the best hours; and 
that of triumph found him none other than what he had ever 
been before, a man of duty, the devoted servant of his coun- 

13 



194, ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

try, with deeper furrows on his face and more melancholy 
in his heart. And so, after having saved the nation, he went 
to his doom and, as he had long foreseen, fell a victim to the 
cause for which he had fought. 

The emotion caused by the event was immense. Among my 
compatriots, part were for the South, part for the North. 
They should not be blamed ; it was the same among Americans. 
But the whole of those who had liberal ideas, the bulk of my 
nation, considered neither North nor South, and thought only 
whether the Republic would survive and continue a great 
Republic, or be shattered to pieces. The efforts of Lincoln 
to preserve the Union were followed with keen anxiety, and 
with the fervent hope that he would succeed. 

When the catastrophe happened, there were no more differ- 
ences, and the whole French nation was united in feeling. 
From the Emperor and the Empress, who telegraphed to Mrs. 
Lincoln, to the humblest workman, the emotion was the same ; 
a wave of sympathy covered the country, such an one as was 
never before seen. A subscription was opened to have a 
medal struck and a copy in gold presented to Mrs. Lincoln. 
In order that it might be a truly national offering, it was 
decided that no one would be permitted to subscribe more than 
two cents. The necessary money was collected in an instant, 
and the medal was struck, bearing these memorable words: 
"Dedicated by French democracy to Lincoln, honest man, who 
abolished slavery, reestablished the Union, saved the Republic, 
without unveiling the statue of Liberty." 

The French press was unanimous ; from the Royalist Gazette 
de France, to the liberal Journal des Debats, came forth the 
same expression of admiration and sorrow. "A Christian," 
said the Gazette de France, "has just ascended before the 
throne of the Final Judge, accompanied by the souls of four 
millions of slaves, created like ours in the image of God, and 
who have been endowed with freedom by a word from him." 
Prevost-Paradol, a member of the French Academy, and a 
prominent liberal, wrote : 

"The political instinct which made enlightened Frenchmen interested 
in the maintenance of the American power, more and more necessary 



THE SPRINGFIELD COMMEMORATION 195 

to the equilibrium of the world, the desire to see a great democratic 
State surmount terrible trials and continue to give an example of the 
most perfect liberty united with the most absolute equality, assured 
the cause of the North a niimber of friends among us. . . . Lin- 
coln was indeed an honest man, giving to the word its full meaning, 
or rather the sublime sense which belongs to it, when honesty was 
to contend with the severest trials which can agitate States and with 
events which have an influence on the fate of the world. . . . Mr. 
Lincoln had but one object in view, from the day of his election to 
that of his death, namely, the fulfilment of his duty, and his imagina- 
tion never carried him beyond it. He has fallen at the very foot 
of the altar, covering it with his blood. But his work was done, 
and the spectacle of a rescued Republic was what he could look upon 
with consolation when his eyes were closing in death. Moreover he 
has not lived for his country alone, since he leaves to everyone in the 
world to whom liberty and justice are dear, a great remembrance and 
a pure example," 

When, in a log cabin of Kentucky, a hundred years ago 
this day, that child was born who was named, after his grand- 
father killed by the Indians — Abraham Lincoln — Napoleon I. 
swayed Europe, Jefferson was President of the United States, 
and the second War of Independence had not yet come to 
pass. It seems all very remote, but the memory of the great 
man whom we try to honor to-day is as fresh as if he had only 
just left us. '*It is," says Plutarch, "the fortune of all good 
men that their virtue rises in glory after their death, and that 
the envy which any evil man may have conceived against 
them never survives the envious." Such was the fate of 
Lincoln. 



THE ILLINOIS SUPREME COURT 
COMMEMORATION 



THE ILLINOIS SUPKEME COURT 
COMMEMORATION 

THE overshadowing importance of the services which Lin- 
coln rendered as President has caused many people to 
overlook, until recently, that Lincoln was prepared for that 
great office by a long and successful career at the bar. It was 
before the Illinois Supreme Court, of which Stephen A. 
Douglas was a member from 1841 to 1843, that he achieved 
many of his forensic triumphs, and that Court, following his 
assassination, held commemorative exercises. 

On February 11, the Lincoln Centenary was observed in 
an impressive manner by commemorative exercises held in 
the Supreme Court of Illinois in the Judiciary Building at 
Springfield, particularly reviewing the services of Lincoln as 
a member of the Illinois bar. A record of these proceedings 
has been published in Volume 238, Illinois Supreme Court 
Reports. Upon this occasion the Court was addressed by 
Mr. MacChesney, representing the city of Chicago; Mr. Jus- 
tice Hand, responding for the Court, and giving a scholarly 
review of Lincoln's place in the profession of the law, and 
of his work before that Court ; while the Court was addressed 
on behalf of the Illinois State Bar Association, by Hon. 
James H. Matheny, and on behalf of the Sangamon County 
Bar Association, by Major James A. Connolly. 

Upon adjournment after these exercises, the Supreme Court 
went in a body to attend a joint celebration under the aus- 
pices of the House and Senate of the General Assembly of 
Illinois, in the Chamber of that House of Representatives, of 
which both Lincoln and Douglas had been members, and 
for the Speakership of which Lincoln was twice a candidate. 
The exercises there were presided over by Hon. Edward D. 
Shurtleff, Speaker of the House of Representatives, and ad- 
dresses were made by the Hon. Charles S. Deneen, Governor 
of Illinois; by the Hon. Frank P. Schmitt, Hon. Frank W. 

199 



200 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Burton, Hon. W. Tudor Ap Madoc, Hon. John Hruby, Hon. 
A. K. Stearns, Hon. A. M. Foster, and Hon. Henry D. Fulton; 
while Lincoln 's Gettysburg Address was given by Hon. Oliver 

Sollett. 



THE CENTENARY OF LINCOLN 

NATHAN WILLIAM MAC CHESNEY 

IT is deemed suitable that upon this occasion some recogni- 
tion should be given to the fact that this State, as a whole, 
is about to celebrate the one hundredth anniversary of the 
birth of Abraham Lincoln. The significance of the event 
has been recognized by the executive proclamation and by a 
joint resolution of the General Assembly. It would be fitting 
if this Court, also, as the representative of the other great 
branch of the government, might take official recognition of 
this great centennial. 

The State of Illinois has been aroused as never before. The 
people throughout the State realize the service that Abraham 
Lincoln rendered to them and to the nation. The citizens of 
Chicago have planned the greatest celebration which that city 
has ever had in its history — community-wide in its aspect and 
educational in its nature. The citizens of Springfield have 
planned a unique and comprehensive programme, reviewing 
the life and services of Abraham Lincoln, to be participated in 
by distinguished representatives of foreign countries, thus 
typifying the world-wide appeal of the man whom they honor. 
It is peculiarly appropriate that these two communities should 
do this, for in Springfield was his life as a lawyer spent. 
It was here that many of his greatest addresses were made, 
and it was from here that he went, with a sense of sadness, 
to take upon him the oath of office of President of the United 
States. On the other hand, it was in Chicago that he was 
nominated for the presidency. It was there that he issued 
the challenge to Judge Douglas for the series of famous joint 
debates, and it was there that he made his first reply to Judge 



ILLINOIS SUPREME COURT COMMEMORATION 201 

Douglas in that series which made his candidacy for the presi- 
dency possible, nay, inevitable. 

Chicago is to observe the centenary of the birth of this great 
Illinoisan, not by a meeting for the favored iew, but by a 
great civic celebration, in order that all the people may realize 
the spirit that animated Lincoln, and perhaps catch it in 
their own lives, so that they, too, may render something of 
the service that he rendered to the State that he loved and 
served so well. It is, therefore, appropriate that Chicago 
should come here, represented by one of her bar, and, in the 
presence of this distinguished tribunal, pay a brief tribute to 
the memory of Abraham Lincoln, the lawyer. And on behalf 
of the Mayor of Chicago and the Citizens' Committee, I de- 
sire to present to this Court a bronze tablet on which is 
inscribed the Gettysburg Address of Lincoln, which is the 
creed of American patriotism, in order that some enduring 
memorial may be erected in this building in commemoration 
of this event. 

The services of Lincoln are so wide and so varied that it 
would be impossible to review them, even were I able to 
do so. In this presence it would be both unnecessary and 
presumptuous to attempt it. The life of Lincoln attracts us 
from whatever direction we approach him. As a man he was 
all-comprehensive in his sympathies and in his appeal to the 
people. Before he was admitted to the bar, as a business man 
be exampled the highest commercial integrity — so much so, 
that it was thought at the time that he was almost finical in 
his ideas on the subject ; but to-day is realized the inspiration 
his sterling honesty has been to thousands of young men enter- 
ing upon commercial careers. 

As a lawyer we know that he stood for the highest standards 
of the profession. He was a constant advocate before this 
Court during the years preceding his entrance upon the larger 
duties of national life. His name frequently appears in the 
volumes of this Court from the December term, 1840, to the 
January term, 1860, The judgment of the bar M'hich knew 
him was eloquently expressed in an address before the full 
bench of the Supreme Court at Ottawa, on May 3, 1865, by 



202 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

the Hon. J. D, Caton, formerly Chief Justice, who presented 
a Memorial which was spread upon your records and which 
appears in the thirty-seventh of Illinois. 

Lincoln as a man, I repeat, was all-comprehensive in his 
appeal. As between man and man he stood for equality of 
rights. He knew no church, he knew no faction, he knew no 
section — no North, no South, no East, no West. He knew 
only the Union. He had no racial antipathies. His life was 
given to the working out of justice so far as he knew it, and 
we can only marvel that he knew it so well. It is, therefore, 
especially appropriate that this Court should take fitting 
recognition of his life. 

Lincoln, perhaps as no other man, made his appeal to the 
people as a whole. He is, in fact, the prototype of American 
citizenship — the ideal of the nation realized. It has been said 
that he is "the first American," and truly so, for in him for 
the first time were embodied the ideals which we all believe 
should go to make up American manhood, and to him we look 
for inspiration for the upbuilding of that manhood and the 
inculcation of those ideals in the citizenship of the future. 

What better tribute could be paid to Lincoln and the 
spirit that guided and directed his private life and professional 
and public career, than to spread upon the records of this 
Court that immortal definition which he gave at Alton of 
the eternal issue in life's struggle and to recognize the truth 
that he ever chose the right ? He there said : 

"That is the real issue. That is the issue that will continue in this 
country when these poor tongues of Judge Douglas and myself shall be 
silent. It is the eternal struggle between these principles — right and 
wrong — throughout the world. They are the two principles that have 
stood face to face from the beginning of time and will ever continue to 
struggle. The one is the common right of humanity, and the other the 
•divine right of kings.' It is the same principle in whatever shape it 
develops itself." 

Let these words stand as our tribute to the life of this man, 
— citizen of Illinois, lawyer of this bar, greatest son of the 
State and Nation, the apotheosis of American manhood. 



LINCOLN'S PKEPARATION FOR THE PRESIDENCY 

JUSTICE HAND 

IN the public mind the fame of Lincoln has in the past 
rested, and will in the future largely rest, upon his con- 
duct of the War of the Rebellion, the liberation of the black 
men from bondage, and the preservation of the union of the 
States; and by reason of the great height to which, as a patriot 
and statesman, he attained, the fact that he was a great law- 
yer when elected President has been largely overlooked ; and 
the further fact that the training and development which 
enabled him to meet and solve the great questions which con- 
fronted him during the years that intervened between the 
firing upon Fort Srnnter and the surrender at Richmond had 
been acquired while he was practising law in the courts of 
Illinois has generally been lost sight of by the people. 
Some of his biographers, even, have passed over, with but little 
note, the great work of preparation in which he was engaged 
in his law office and in the courts where he practised from 
1837 to 1860. I quote from one of his biographers, who says, 
**He had had no experience in diplomacy and statesmanship. 
As an attorney he had dealt only with local and State statutes. 
He had never argued a case in the Supreme Court and he had 
never studied international law." And we often hear it said 
by his eulogists, that without training in statecraft or in the 
law, he was called from his humble surroundings by his fellow- 
countrymen to assume responsibilities which well might have 
deterred the wisest, the most experienced, and the bravest man 
who had ever been called to rule over the destinies of men or of 
nations. It has been said that, in some mysterious way, without 
any previous preparation either by study or experience, within 
a few weeks — at most within a few months — after his election 
as President he developed into the foremost man in modern 

203 



204 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

history. That view of the life of Lincoln is based upon a total 
misapprehension of his history. Lincoln, at the time he took 
the oath of office as President of the United States, was a 
great lawyer and a statesman of broad views, and while in all 
his undertakings for the preservation of the Union he recog- 
nized an all-wise overruling Providence, he was thoroughly 
trained, prepared, and amply qualified by a long course of 
study and by much reflection to perform the great work to 
which he had been called, and which preparation and reflec- 
tion gave him, throughout his turbulent administration, the 
forbearance and wisdom which were necessary to enable him 
to accomplish with a brave and steadfast purpose the great 
undertaking to which he had consecrated his life. 

It must not be supposed, however, that Lincoln reached the 
high position which he occupied, at once or without the most 
persistent and painstaking labor, which extended over many 
years of his eventful life. He came from good New England 
stock. He was licensed as an attorney, September 9, 1836, 
enrolled March 1, 1837, and commenced practice April 21, 
1837. Prior to that time he had been a farmhand, a river 
boatman, a soldier in the Black Hawk War, a Deputy County 
Surveyor, a Postmaster, and a member of the State Legislature, 
and while he then had but little knowledge of books, he knew 
well the motives which control the actions of men. 

During his professional career Lincoln had three law part- 
ners^ — Major John T. Stuart, Judge Stephen T. Logan, and 
"William H. Herndon, Wlien he entered upon the practice 
of the law the country was new and the people were poor. 
The Courts were held in log houses. There were few law 
books to be had and the litigation involved but little in amount 
— the civil cases being mainly actions of assiimpit based upon 
promissory notes and accounts, and actions of tort for the 
recovery of damages for assaults, slanders, etc., and the crim- 
inal cases generally involving some form of personal violence 
— and most of the lawyers of that day divided their time be- 
tween the law and politics. 

When Lincoln, in the Spring of 1837, came to Springfield 
to commence his professional career he rode a borrowed horse 




P]i()tn<,n-;inli of ][on. ( ". S. Dcnccii. (ioMTiKir of Illinois 



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pel^ru^ry 5, "L'P09 



The cele"brati ons which throughout the 
country are to mark the One Hundredth Anniversary 
of the birth of T.inroln are an expression of the 
esteem and affection in which his navie and 
character are universally held "by the Aiierican 
peo7)le . 

In this memorial occasion, the people of 
Illinois have a special and peculiar interest. 
Here Lincoln passed his mature years and here 
he "began that marvelous public career which 
has earned the admiration of his countrymen 
and the world . 

It is gratifying, therefore, to witness 
the e.xtensi'^e preparations ivhich are being 
mi^de by the citizens of Illinois to observe this 
great day in a mann-^r worthy of its significance 
in the history of our State and country and cf 
the move?nent for liberty t-"-rou.':'hout the world. 
And I urge the citizens o'^ Illinois to partic- 
ipate in tnese celebrations in their various 
communities. In Lincoln's life every citizen 
may find =n incentive to patriot is: n and the 
earnestness with which we join in this tribute 
to his memory v/ill attest the measure of our 
devotion to the great principles of liberty 
and nationality with which his name will be 
forever associated. /?! 

'lb 

Governor . 



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ILLINOIS SUPREME COURT COMMEMORATION 205 

and carried his goods and chattels in a pair of saddle-bags. 
Lincoln remained in partnership with Major Stuart, with 
whom he had served in the Black Hawk War, until 1841, dur- 
ing the most of which time Mr. Stuart was in Congress and 
Mr, Lincoln in the State Legislature, and he made but little 
progress in a financial or professional way during that period. 
He, however, had during that time a number of cases of some 
importance in the Circuit Court and a few in this Court. 
The first case he had in this Court was at the December term, 
1840, and was that of Scammon v. Cline, 2 Scam. 456, in 
which he was defeated. That case involved a question of 
practice in taking an appeal from a Justice of the Peace in 
the Circuit Court, and established no principle of any im- 
portance. At the July term, 1841, however, he did have in 
this Court a most important case, the decision of which was 
far-reaching in its results; and the manner in which he han- 
dled it, showed that the future held in store for him a great 
professional career. It was brought in the Tazewell County 
Circuit Court by the administrators of Nathan Cromwell 
against David Bailey, upon a promissory note made to Crom- 
well in his lifetime for the purchase of a negro girl named 
Nance, sold by Cromwell to Bailey. The plaintiff was rep- 
resented by Judge Stephen T. Logan, who at the time of the 
"War was at the zenith of his professional career as a lawyer. 
Judgment was rendered upon the note by Judge William 
Thomas, who presided at the trial, in favor of the plaintiff 
for four hundred thirty-one dollars, ninety-seven cents. The 
defendant prosecuted an appeal to this Court, where it was 
contended the note was without consideration and void, as it 
was given as the purchase price of a human being, who, the 
evidence showed, as it was claimed, was free and therefore 
not the subject of sale This Court reversed the trial Court, 
the opinion being written by Judge Breese (3 Scam. 71), who 
held, contrary to the established rule in many of the Southern 
States, that the presumption in Illinois was that a negro was 
free and not the subject of sale. Under the old rule the 
burden was upon the negro to establish that he was free, as 
the presumption obtained that a black man was a slave ; under 



206 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

the new rule established by the opinion of Judp;e Breese the 
presumption obtained that a black man in this State was free, 
and a person who asserted he was a slave was required to 
bring forward his proof, which often it was impossible to do. 

It was a fortunate circumstance in the life of Lincoln that 
in 1841 he allied himself with Judge Logan. The judge, like 
Lincoln, was from Kentucky and was a very great lawyer; 
not only a great lawyer, but a good lawyer — one thoroughly 
grounded in all the principles and technicalities of the com- 
mon law, which at that time Lincoln was not, and during the 
next four years, and throughout his association with Judge 
Logan, Lincoln grew as a lawyer very rapidly. At that period 
there lived in Illinois a great number of very able lawyers — 
Logan, Stuart, Baker, Douglas, Trumbull, Davis, Treat, 
Breese, Hardin, Shields, Linder, Manney, Purple, Knox, and 
others — many of whom would have graced the bar of any 
court, even that of the Supreme Court at Washington or the 
courts at Westminster, in England, and a number of whom 
subsequently attained high distinction upon the bench or in 
other walks of public life. The United States Courts and the 
State Supreme Court of Illinois were then held in Spring- 
field. Lincoln was immediately throwTi into contact and com- 
petition with those great men, and his contemporaries all 
attest the fact that at the time he was elected to Congress 
from the Springfield district, in the Fall of 1846, he was the 
peer, as a lawyer, of any of them. Upon the dissolution of 
the firm of Logan and Lincoln, the firm of Lincoln and Hern- 
don was formed, which lasted until Lincoln was elected Pres- 
ident. 

Lincoln was, during the time that he was in partnership 
with Judge Logan, and up to the time this ambition was 
satisfied, anxious to go to Congress. There were then living 
in that district, also, 'J. J. Hardin, E. D. Baker, and Judge 
Logan, all of whom had the same ambition, and it has been 
charged, but perhaps without foundation, that the "Big 
Four," as these men were called, formed a coalition, whereby 
Hardin, Baker, Lincoln, and Logan were each to have a term 
in Congress in the order in which they are named. Hardin, 



ILLINOIS SUPREME COURT COMMEMORATION 207 

Baker, and Lincoln each served a term in Congress, and Logan 
received the nomination, but was defeated at the polls. 

There is another strange coincidence with three of those 
great men. Hardin fell at Buena Vista while leading his 
men in a charge during the Mexican "War; Baker fell while 
leading his men at Ball's Bluff, during the War of the Rebel- 
lion ; and Lincoln, just at the close of the War, lost his life at 
the hands of an assassin. 

Lincoln was not a candidate for reelection to Congress, and 
upon his return to Springfield, in 1849, he resumed the prac- 
tice of the law ; and, it may be said, for the next eleven years 
he devoted all his energy to his profession, and his develop- 
ment during that period was such that when he stepped from 
his law office in Springfield into the executive office at Wash- 
ington, no man since the time of Washington was more 
thoroughly equipped and prepared to fill wisely that exalted 
position than was he. 

During that eleven years preceding the election of Lincoln 
as President, he not only rode the old Eighth Judicial Circuit, 
but he had a large practice in this Court and in the United 
States Circuit and District Courts of Illinois, and was often 
called to represent large interests in foreign States. During 
the twenty-three years that Lincoln practised law he had one 
hundred and seventy-three cases in this Court — a most re- 
markable record — and I have found two cases (and perhaps 
there are others) which he had during that period in the 
Supreme Court of the United States. 

Lincoln was a great jury lawyer, as is attested by his 
efforts in the Armstrong case and the Harrison case — both 
murder cases — and in many other cases. He was also equally 
strong with the Court. For many years he represented some 
of the great corporations of the State, such as the Illinois 
Central Railroad Company and the Chicago, Rock Island and 
Pacific Railroad Company, and when he became a candidate 
for President, the lawyers of the State, recognizing his eminent 
ability, almost to a man gave him their earnest and warm 
support, and his nomination was largely secured through the 
influence of Judge David Davis, Gen. John M. Palmer, 



208 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Leonard Swett, Richard J. Oglesby, Richard Yates, and other 
well known lawyers of Illinois with whom he had travelled 
the old Eighth Judicial Circuit and with whom he had tried 
cases in different sections of the State. 

If it were necessary to quote authority to prove the great- 
ness of Lincoln as a lawyer, the testimony of innumerable 
members of the bench and bar who knew him might be cited. 
I will only refer to that of one — Judge David Davis, of the 
old Eighth Judicial Circuit, who afterwards graced with dig- 
nity and learning, a seat upon the Supreme Bench of the 
United States. He said: 

"I enjoyed for over twenty years the personal friendship of Mr. 
Lincoln. We were admitted to the bar about the same time and 
travelled for many years what is known in Illinois as the Eighth 
Judicial Circuit. In 1848, when I first went on the bench, the circuit 
embraced fourteen Counties, and Mr. Lincoln went with the Court to 
every County. Railroads were not then in use and our mode of travel 
was either on horseback or in buggies. . . . Mr. Lincoln was trans- 
ferred from the bar of that Circuit to the office of the President of 
the United States, having been without official position since he left 
Congress, in 1849. In all the elements that constitute the great lawyer 
he had few equals. He was great both at nisi prius and before an 
appellate tribunal. He seized the strong points of a cause and pre- 
sented them with clearness and great compactness. His mind was 
logical and direct and he did not indulge in extraneous discussion. 
His power of comparison was large, and he rarely failed in a legal 
discu. 'ion to use that mode of reasoning. The framework of his 
mental and moral being was honesty, and a wrong cause was poorly 
defended by him. In order to bring into full activity his great 
powers it was necessary that he should be convinced of the right 
and justice of the matter which he advocated. When so convinced, 
whether the cause was great or small, he was usually successful. 
He hated wrong and oppression everywhere, and many a man whose 
fraudulent conduct was undergoing review in a court of justice has 
writhed under his terrific indignation and rebukes." 

One of the most important cases which Lincoln ever tried 
was that of the Illinois Central Railroad Company against the 
County of McLean (17 111. 291), which case involved the 
right of McLean County to tax lands of the Illinois Central 
Railroad Company in that County. Mr. Lincoln represented 



ILLINOIS SUPREME COURT COMMEMORATION 209 

the company and was defeated in the Trial Court. The case 
was carried to this Court, where it was argued orally twice by 
Lincoln, and the judgment of the lower Court was reversed. 
Lincoln received a fee of five thousand dollars for his services 
in that case — the largest fee which he ever received. There 
was some controversy over its payment, and it was finally paid 
after it had been put into judgment. A lawyer at the present 
day, of equal prominence with Lincoln, would doubtless have 
charged twenty-five thousand dollars for the same service. 

Lincoln, in about 1856, was retained by Mr. Manney in the 
famous case of McCormick i\ Manney, tried in the United 
States Court at Cincinnati, which involved the validity of 
the patents under which the McCormick reapers were manu- 
factured, and a claim of four hundred thousand dollars 
for infringement. Governor William H. Seward and Hon. 
Edwin M. Stanton were also retained in that case — Mr. 
Seward for the plaintiff, Mr. Stanton for the defendant. Lin- 
coln went to Cincinnati to assist in the trial of the case but 
did not argue the case orally. It has been said that during 
the trial Stanton ignored him and that Seward was supposed 
to have far out-ranked him as a lawyer. Lincoln, however, 
lived long enough to demonstrate to the world that intellectu- 
ally he towered above each of those great men as does the 
snow-capped peak above the foothills. 

Lincoln, a little later, appeared in the United States Court 
in Chicago in the Rock Island Bridge case — a case which in- 
volved the right to bridge the Mississippi River. It was really 
a contest between the railroads and the steamboats. Judge 
Blodgett of Chicago, who was at the time of the trial a young 
man, later in his eventful life told me he listened to Lincoln's 
arguments in that case, and he said to me it was the greatest 
forensic effort that he had ever heard. In a nutshell, he said 
Lincoln's position was, if you have the right to go up and 
down a river, you have the right to cross it. He further said 
his peroration was grand beyond description. All the terri- 
tory west of the Mississippi was then practically unoccupied, 
3iid he said Lincoln described the future development of that 



210 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

great territory in such vivid terms that his language, to one 
who then heard it and had now ridden through that vast terri- 
tory and seen the development that had taken place, almost 
seemed prophetic. 

In the debate with Senator Douglas, in 1858, Lincoln dem- 
onstrated that he was a far greater lawyer than Senator 
Douglas. The answers which Senator Douglas attempted to 
make to the questions propounded to him by Lincoln at Free- 
port involved Douglas in a maze of contradictions and incon- 
sistencies, alienated the South from him, and perhaps lost 
him the presidency. 

After Lincoln was inaugurated as President his adminis- 
tration was immediately beset with many great and vexatious 
questions which demanded immediate answers. The South 
claimed the right of secession, and the feeble administration 
which surrendered the reins of government to Lincoln had 
sought to compromise with the men who were attempting to 
break up the government. Lincoln firmly denied the right of 
secession. He said that one party to a contract could not 
voluntarily abrogate it. He said a contract might be broken, 
but that it could not be rescinded, except for fraud in its 
inception, without the concurrent act of both parties. This 
argument was but re-stating well-settled principles of law, 
which he had heard announced and seen applied time and 
again upon the old Eighth Judicial Court when he was prac- 
tising law, and his clear statement of the proposition satisfied 
the country and put the seceding States upon the defensive. 

In the controversy with England over the capture of Mason 
and Slidell he upheld the principles for which the United 
States had contended in the War of 1812, and the vexatious 
problem was satisfactorily and wisely settled. When the 
United States Treasury was depleted he said the issue of the 
greenback was authorized under the Constitution as a war 
measure, and when the question of emancipating the slaves 
presented itself for decision he also invoked the powers of the 
government in time of war as a justification for his Emancipa- 
tion Proclamation. 

All these questions, as well as the other great questions 



ILLINOIS SUPREME COURT COMMEMORATION 211 

which confronted him during the time he was President, he 
met with firmness, with wisdom, and with courage, with great 
forethought and forbearance, and in each instance applied 
to their solution the great principles of law and justice with 
which he had stored his mind during the twenty-three years 
that he had been a student of law and a practitioner in the 
courts of Illinois. 

I believe Abraham Lincoln to have been the greatest man 
who lived during the century in which he was born, and that 
the appreciation of his greatness will increase with the re- 
ceding years. I also believe the great achievements which 
he accomplished and which have magnified his name until it 
has filled the whole world, are due, in great measure, to the 
discipline and training received by him while an active mem- 
ber of the noble profession of the law. 



THE BLOOMINGTON COMMEMORATION 



THE BLOOMINGTON COMMEMORATION 

IT was in Bloomington that the Republican party in Illinois 
was given birth, on May 29, 1856, when Lincoln uni- 
fied, inspired, and so stirred the Convention with his 
famous ''Lost Speech," that even the reporters failed to take 
their notes, but were caught by the enthusiasm of the audience 
and listened with wonderment. Lincoln's speech on that day 
was regarded as the greatest that had ever been made in the 
State, and as making him a presidential possibility. There, 
too, on the last sad journey of the dead President to his final 
resting place, his body lay in state at the Court House, where 
for years the people had been accustomed to see his lank 
figure passing in and out, crowds gathering from far and near 
to gaze for the last time upon his silent face. 

The City of Bloomington, like Springfield and Chicago, 
felt that it had a special interest in Lincoln and the Lincoln 
Centenary, because of Lincoln having visited and spoken 
there, and because it has as its citizens prominent men who 
had personal touch with Mr. Lincoln, A large and enthusi- 
astic meeting was addressed by the Hon. Adlai Stevenson, 
Vice-President of the United States under Grover Cleveland; 
by Judge R. M. Benjamin, Dean of the Illinois Wesleyan 
Law School there, and the author and editor of several well 
known legal treatises; and by Judge Owen T. Reeves — all 
three of these speakers having known Lincoln personally, and 
speaking, therefore, from a first-hand knowledge of the times 
and the man. 



215 



LINCOLN THE STATESMAN 

HON. ADLAI E. STEVENSON 

IN the humblest of homes in the wilds of a new and sparsely- 
settled State, Abraham Lincoln was born one hundred 
years ago this day. The twelfth day of February — like the 
twenty-second day of the same month — is one of the sacred 
days in the American calendar. It is well that this day be 
set apart from ordinary uses, the headlong rush in the crowded 
mart suspended, the voice of fierce contention in legislative 
hall be hushed, and that the American people — whether at 
home, in foreign land, or upon the deep — honor themselves 
by honoring the memory of the man of whose birth this day 
is the first centennial. 

This coming together is no idle ceremony, no unmeaning 
observance. For to this man — more than to any other — 
are we indebted for the supreme fact that ninety millions 
of the people are at this hour, in the loftiest sense of the 
expression, fellow citizens of a common country. Some of 
us through the mists of half a century distinctly recall the 
earnest tones in which Mr. Lincoln in public speech uttered 
the words, "My fellow citizens." Truly the magical words 
*' fellow citizens" never fail to touch a responsive chord in 
the patriotic heart. Was it the gifted Prentiss who at a 
critical moment of our history exclaimed: 

"For whether upon the Sabine or the St. Johns; standing in the 
shadow of Bunker Hill or amid the ruins of Jamestown; near the 
great northern lakes or within the sound of the Father of Waters 
flowing unvexed to the sea; in the crowded mart of the great metropolis 
or upon the Western verge of the continent where the restless tide 
of emigration is stayed only by the ocean — everywhere, upon this 
broad domain, thank God, I can still say 'Fellow citizens'!" 

Let US pause for a moment and briefly note some of the 
marvellous results wrought out by the toil, strife, and sacri- 

216 



THE BLOOMINGTON COMMEMORATION 217 

fice of the century whose close we commemorate. The year 
of our Lord 1809 was one of large place in history. The au- 
thor of the Declaration of Independence was upon the eve 
of final retirement from public place, and the presidential 
term of James Madison just beginning, when, in a log cabin 
near the western verge of civilization, the eyes of Abraham 
Lincoln first opened upon the world. The vast area stretch- 
ing from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean was under 
the dominion of Spain. Two decades only had passed since 
the establishment of the United States government under the 
federal Constitution — and the inauguration of Washington as 
its first President. Lewis and Clark had but recently re- 
turned from the now historic expedition to the Columbia and 
the Oregon — an expedition fraught with momentous conse- 
quence to the oncoming generations of the Republic. Only 
five years had passed since President Jefferson had purchased 
from Napoleon Bonaparte, for fifteen millions of dollars, 
the Louisiana country extending from the Gulf of Mexico 
to the frozen lakes — out of which were to be carved six- 
teen magnificent States to become enduring parts of the 
American Republic. From the early colonial settlements that 
fringed the Atlantic a tide of hardy emigration was setting 
in to the Westward, and, regardless of privation and danger, 
laying the sure foundation for future commonwealths. Four 
States only had been admitted into the federal Union, and 
the population of the entire country was less than that of the 
State of New York to-day. This same year witnessed the 
first organization of Illinois into a distinct political com- 
munity and its creation by Act of Congress as "the Territory 
of Illinois," with a white population less than one-twentieth 
of that of this good County to-day. The United States hav- 
ing barely escaped a war with France — our ally in securing 
independence — was earnestly struggling for distinct place 
among the nations. 

No less significant, and fraught with deep consequences, 
were events transpiring in the old world. The year 1809 
witnessed the birth of Darwin and Gladstone. The despot- 
ism of the dark ages still brooded over continental Europe, 



218 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

and whatever savored of popular rule — even in its mildest 
form — was yet in the distant future. Alexander the First 
was on the throne of Russia — and her millions of serfs op- 
pressed as by the iron hand of the Caesars. The splendid 
German Empire of to-day had no place on the map of the 
world ; its present powerful constituencies were antagonistic 
provinces and warring independent cities. Napoleon Bona- 
parte — "calling Fate into the lists," — by a succession of 
victories unparalleled in history, had overturned thrones, 
compelled kings upon bended knee to sue for peace, substi- 
tuted those of his own household for dynasties that reached 
back the entire length of human history, and with his star still 
in the ascendant, disturbed by no forecast of the horrid night- 
mare of the retreat from Moscow, "with legions scattered 
by the artillery of the snows and the fierce cavalry of the 
winds," tortured by no dream of Leipsic, of Elba, of Water- 
loo, of St. Helena — still the "man of destiny" was relentlessly 
pursuing the igjiis fatuus of universal empire. 

The year that witnessed the birth of Abraham Lincoln 
witnessed the gathering of the disturbing elements that were 
to precipitate the second war with the mother country. 
England — with George the Third upon the throne — by in- 
sulting and cruel search of American vessels upon the high 
seas, was rendering inevitable the declaration of war by Con- 
gress — a war of humiliation upon our part by the disgraceful 
surrender of Hull at Detroit, and the wanton burning of our 
capitol, but crowned with honor by the naval victories of 
Lawrence, Decatur, and Perry, and eventually terminated 
by the capture of the British army at New Orleans. As an. 
object lesson of the marvels of the closing century: an inci- 
dent of so momentous consequence to the world as the formu- 
lation of the Treaty of Ghent — by which peace was restored 
between England and America — would to-day be known at 
every fireside a few hours after its occurrence. And yet 
within the now closing century — the Treaty of Ghent coming 
by slow sailing vessel across the Atlantic — twenty-three days 
after it had received the signatures of our commissioners the 
Battle of New Orleans was fought, all unsettled accounts 



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THE BLOOMINGTON COMMEMORATION 219 

eternally squared between America and Great Britain, and 
the United States, by valor no less than by diplomacy, exalted 
to honored and enduring place among the nations. 

The fifty- six years that compassed the life of Abraham 
Lincoln were years of transcendent significance to our coun- 
try, "While yet in his rude cradle, the African slave trade 
had just terminated by constitutional inhibition. While Lin- 
coln was still in attendance upon "the old field school," 
Henry Clay — yet to be known as the "Great Pacificator" — 
was pressing the admission of Missouri into the Union un- 
der the first compromise upon the question of slavery since 
the adoption of the Federal Constitution. From the estab- 
lishment of the government the question of human slavery 
was the one perilous question — the one constant menace to 
national unity, until its final extinction amid the flames of war. 
Marvellous to man are the purposes of the Almighty. What 
seer could have foretold that from this humblest of homes 
upon the frontier was to spring the man who at the crucial 
moment should cut the Gordian knot, liberate a race, and 
give to the ages enlarged and grander conception of the 
deathless principles of the declaration of human rights? 

"Often do the spirits of great events 
Stride on before the events. 
And in to-day already walks to-morrow." 

The first inauguration of President Lincoln noted the hour 
of the "breaking with the past." It was a period of gloom, 
when the very foundations were shaken, when no man could 
foretell the happening of the morrow, when strong men trem- 
bled at the possibility of the destruction of our government. 

Pause a moment, my countrymen, and recall the man who, 
under the conditions mentioned, on the fourth of March, 
1861, entered upon the duties of the great office to which he 
had been chosen. He came from the common walks of life — 
from what in other countries would be called the great middle 
class. His early home was one of the humblest, where he 
was a stranger to the luxuries, and to many of the ordinary 
comforts of life. His opportunities for education were only 



220 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

such as were common in the remote habitations of our West- 
ern country one century ago. 

Under such conditions began a career that in grandeur 
and achievement has but a single counterpart in our history. 
And what a splendid commentary this upon our free institu- 
tions — upon the sublime underlying principle of popular gov- 
ernment! How inspiring to the youth of high aims every 
incident of the pathway that led from the frontier cabin to 
the executive mansion — from the humblest position to the 
most exalted yet attained by man ! In no other countiy than 
ours could such attainment have been possible for the boy 
whose hands were inured to toil, whose bread was eaten under 
the hard conditions that poverty imposes, whose only heritage 
was brain, integrity, lofty ambition, and indomitable purpose. 
Let it never be forgotten that the man of whom I speak pos- 
sessed an integrity that could know no temptation, a purity 
of life that was never questioned, a patriotism that no sec- 
tional lines could limit, and a fixedness of purpose that knew 
no shadow of turning. 

The decade extending from our first treaty of peace with 
Great Britain to the inauguration of Washington has been 
truly denominated the critical period of our history. The 
eloquence of Adams and Henry had precipitated revolution ; 
the unfaltering courage of Washington and his comrades had 
secured independence ; but the more difficult task of garnering 
up the fruits of victory by stable government was yet to be 
achieved. The hour for the constructive statesman had ar- 
rived, and James Madison and his associates — equal to the 
emergency — formulated the Federal Constitution. 

No less critical was the period that bounded the active life 
of the man whose memory we honor to-day. One perilous 
question to national unity — for near three-quarters of a cen- 
tury the subject of repeated compromise by patriotic states- 
men, the apple of discord producing sectional antagonism, 
whose shadow had darkened our national pathway from the 
beginning — was now for weal or woe to find determination. 
Angry debate in senate and upon the forum was now hushed, 
and the supreme question that took hold of national life was 



THE BLOOMINGTON COMMEMORATION 221 

to find enduring arbitrament in the dread tribunal 
of war. 

* It was well in such an hour — with such tremendous issues 
in the balance — that a steady hand was at the helm; that 
a conservative statesman — one whose mission was to save, 
not to destroy — was in the high place of responsibility and 
power. It booted little, then, that he was untaught of schools, 
unskilled in the ways of courts, but it was of supreme moment 
that he could touch responsive chords in the great American 
heart; all-important that his very soul yearned for the 
preservation of the government established through the toil 
and sacrifice of the generation that had gone. How hopeless 
the Kepublic in that dark hour had its destiny hung upon 
the statecraft of Tallyrand, the eloquence of Mirabeau, or the 
genius of Napoleon ! 

Fortunate, indeed, that the ark of our covenant was then 
borne by the plain brave man of conciliatory spirit and kind 
words, and whose heart, as Emerson said, "Was as large as 
the world but nowhere had room for the memory of wrong ! ' ' 

Nobler words have never fallen from human lips than the 
closing sentences of his First Inaugural in one of the pivotal 
days of human history — immediately upon taking the oath 
to preserve, protect, and defend the country : 

"I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must 
not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break 
our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from 
every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearth- 
stone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union 
when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our 
nature." 

In the light of what we now know so well, nothing is haz- 
arded in saying that the death of no man has been to this 
country so irreparable a loss — one so grievous to be borne — ■ 
as that of Abraham Lincoln. When Washington died his 
work was done, his life well rounded out — save one, the years 
allotted had been passed. Not so with Lincoln. To him a 
grander task was yet in waiting — one no other could so well 
perform. The assassin's pistol proved the veritable Paur 



222 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

dora's box from which sprung evils untold — whose consequen- 
ces have never been measured — to one-third of the States of 
our Union. But for his untimely death, how the current of 
history might have been changed — and many a sad chapter 
remained unwritten ! How earnestly he desired a restored 
Union, and that the blessings of peace and of concord should 
be the common heritage of every section, is known to all. 

"When in the loom of time have such words been heard 
above the din of fierce conflict as his sublime utterances but a 
brief time before his tragic death: 

"With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness for 
the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the 
work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who 
shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do 
all which may achieve a lasting peace among ourselves and among all 
nations." 

No fitter occasion than this can ever arise in which to 
refer to two historical events that at a crucial moment tested 
to the utmost the safe and far-seeing statesmanship of Pres- 
ident Lincoln. The first was the seizure upon the high seas 
of Mason and Slidell, the accredited representatives from the 
Southern Confederacy, respectively to the Courts of England 
and of France. The seizure was in November, 1861, by 
Capt. Wilkes of our Navy — and the envoys named were 
taken by him from tlie Trent, a mail-carrying steamer of the 
British Government. The act of Capt. Wilkes met with 
enthusiastic commendation throughout the entire country; he 
was voted the thanks of Congress and his act publicly ap- 
proved by the Secretary of the Navy. 

The demand by the British government for reparation upon 
the part of the United States was prompt and explicit. The 
perils that then environed us were such as rarely shadow the 
pathway of nations. Save Russia alone, our government had 
no friend among the crowned heads of Europe. Menaced 
by the peril of the recognition of the Southern Confederacy 
by England and France — with the very stars apparently 
warring against us in their courses — the position of the Pres- 
ident was in the last degree trying. To surrender the Con- 



THE BLOOMINGTON COMMEMORATION 223 

federate envoys was in a measure humiliating and in opposi- 
tion to the popular impulse ; their retention, the signal for 
the probable recognition of the Southern Confederacy by the 
European powers, and the certain and immediate declaration 
of war by England, 

The good genius of President Lincoln — rather his wise, just, 
far-seeing statesmanship — stood him well in hand at the criti- 
cal moment. Had a rash, opinionated, impulsive man then 
held the executive office, what a sea of troubles might have 
overwhelmed us — how the entire current of our history might 
have been changed ! 

The calm, wise President in his council chamber — aided by 
his closest official adviser. Secretary Seward — discerned clearly 
the path of national safety and of honor. None the less was 
the act of the President one of justice — one that will abide 
the sure test of time. Upon the real ground that the seizure 
of the envoys was in violation of the law of nations, they 
were eventually surrendered; war with England — as well 
as immediate danger of recognition of the Confederacy — 
averted. And let it not be forgotten that this very act of 
President Lincoln was a triumphant vindication of our gov- 
ernment in its second war with Great Britain — a war waged 
as a protest upon our part against British seizure and impress- 
ment of American citizens upon the high seas. 

The other incident to which I briefly refer was the Procla- 
mation of Emancipation. As a war measure of stupendous 
significance in the national defense — as well as of justice to 
the enslaved — such proclamation, immediate in time, and 
radical in terms, had, to greater or less degree, been urged 
apon the President from the outbreak of the Rebellion. That 
slavery was to perish amid the great upheaval, became in time 
the solemn conviction of all thoughtful men. Meanwhile there 
were divided counsels among the earnest supporters of the 
President as to the time the masterful act — "that could know 
no backward steps" — should be taken. Unmoved amid di- 
vided counsels — and at times fierce dissensions — the calm, 
far-seeing Executive upon whom was cast the tremendous 
responsibility, patiently bided his time. Events that are 



224 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

now the masterful theme of history crowded in rapid succes- 
sion, the opportune moment arrived, the hour struck, the 
Proclamation — that has no counterpart — fell upon the ears 
of the startled world, and as by the interposition of a mightier 
hand, a race was lifted out of the depths of bondage. 

To the one man at the helm seems to have been given to 
know "the day and the hour." At the crucial moment in 
one of the exalted days of human history, ' ' He sounded forth 
the trumpet that has never called retreat." 

My fellow-citizens, the men who knew Abraham Lincoln, 
who saw him face to face, who heard his voice in public as- 
semblage, have, with few exceptions, passed to the grave. 
Another generation is upon the busy stage. The book has 
forever closed upon the dread pageant of civil strife. Sec- 
tional animosities, thank God, belong now only to the past. 
The mantle of peace is over our entire land and prosperity 
within our borders. 

Through the instrumentality — in no small measure — of the 
man whose memory we now honor, the government established 
by our fathers, untouched by the finger of Time, has de- 
scended to us. The responsibility of its preservation and 
transmission rests upon the successive generations as they 
shall come and go. To-day, at this auspicious hour — sacred to 
the memory of Lincoln — let us, his countrymen, inspired by 
the sublime lessons of his wondrous life, and grateful to God 
for all He has vouchsafed to our fathers and to us in the 
past, take courage and turn our faces resolutely, hopefully, 
trustingly to the future. I know of no words more fitting 
with which to close this humble tribute to the memory of 
Abraham Lincoln than those inscribed upon the monument of 
Moliere : ' ' Nothing was wanting to his glory ; he was wanting 
to ours." 



LINCOLN THE LAWYER, AND HIS BLOOMINGTON 
SPEECHES 

R. M. BENJAMIN 

MY personal acquaintance with Abraham Lincoln began 
in 1856 and continued until his election to the presi- 
dency in 1860. Accordingly, my remarks on this occasion 
will be confined to that period. 

I shall first speak of Lincoln, the lawyer, and then of his two 
principal Bloomington speeches — one of them in Major's Hall 
on May 26, 1856, and the other in the Court House square 
on September 4, 1858. 

I began the study of law at the Harvard Law School in 
1854, came to Bloomington in April, 1856, was admitted 
to the bar on an examination certificate signed by Lin- 
coln, and in October of the same year, began the prac- 
tice of law in company with Gridley and Wickizer. They 
were both old-time Whigs — political associates and sup- 
porters of Mr. Lincoln. Gen. Gridley had served as a Rep- 
resentative, and later as a Senator, in the State Legislature, 
and was at the time (1856) one of the five members of the 
State Central Committee of the new party just organized 
and known at first as the Anti-Nebraska Party. Mr. Wickizer 
had been Mayor of the city of Bloomington, and at the No- 
vember election, 1856, was elected the Representative of this 
legislative district. During the four years between the Spring 
of 1856 and the Spring of 1860, Lincoki was a regular at- 
tendant at the sessions of the McLean County Circuit Court. 

He sometimes, in important cases, assisted us, and he fre- 
quently visited the office for consultation with Gridley and 
Wickizer on political matters. 

In 1856, there were published only sixteen volumes of the 
Illinois Supreme Court Reports. There are now two hundred 
15 225 



226 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

and thirty-five volumes of these Reports. Previous to that 
time, and up to 1860 — during all the period that Lincoln was 
a practising lawyer — causes were tried on principle rather 
than precedent. Those who followed Judge David Davis as 
he went from county to county holding court on the "Old 
Eighth Circuit," when the published reports were so few and 
the jurisprudence of Illinois was in its formative state, were 
naturally compelled in the trial of causes to base their argu- 
ments to the Court and jury upon the solid foundation of 
right and justice. Instead of citing a great number of alleged 
similar cases, and spending their time in long arguments to 
show the analogy between them and the one at bar, they would 
apply to the transaction in controversy the test of reason, 
and appeal to that faculty by which we distinguish truth 
from falsehood and right from wrong. 

Why is it that the people at large, the unlearned as well as 
the learned, so uniformly observe the law — follow its man- 
dates in the indefinitely varying circumstances of life ? Why 
is it that they are held bound to know the law? Is it not 
because they know the difference between the true and the 
false — between right and wrong — between justice and injus- 
tice — between law and violation of law ? 

The lawyer of central Illinois who ''travelled the Circuit" 
fifty-six years ago, did not carry with him, and could not cite, 
an array of authorities in support of the points he made, but 
he had to win, if at all, by his ability to marshal the facts 
in evidence and by his power of reasoning to carry convic- 
tion of the righteousness of his client's cause. The school 
of law in which Abraham Lincoln, John T. Stuart, Leonard 
Swett, and Lawrence Weldon were trained, was a school, not 
merely of oratory, but also of logic and legal ethics. 

But it must not be inferred that Lincoln never consulted 
authorities. Although he was on the circuit a large portion of 
the year, he had access at Springfield, his home, to the State 
Law Library — to the English, the Federal, and the State Re- 
ports. And whenever any of the hundreds of cases, in the 
trial of which he had taken part on the Circuit, were taken 
to the Supreme Court of the State, he would reinforce himself 



THE BLOOMINGTON COMMEMORATION 227 

with all the authorities he could find in the books. In this 
way he was doubly armed for the final contest. He had his 
forces well in hand, with principles in the fore-front of the 
battle and precedents for their support. 

Lincoln was admitted to the bar in 1837. The Illinois Re- 
ports show that in the twenty-three years of his practice 
of law, he argued one hundred and seventy-three cases in the 
Supreme Court of the State. He also had a large practice in 
the United States District and Circuit Courts at Springfield 
and Chicago. 

The best description of Lincoln as a lawyer that I have ever 
read was that of Thomas Drummond, who was Judge of the 
United States District Court of Illinois as early as 1850, 
and subsequently became Judge of the United States Circuit 
Court for this, the Seventh Judicial District, comprising 
the States of Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin. Judge Drum- 
mond gives this characterization of Lincoln as a lawyer : 

"Without any of the personal graces of the orator; without much 
in the outer man indicating superiority of intellect; without great 
quickness of perception ; still, his mind was so vigorous, his compre- 
hension so exact and clear, and his judgment so sure that he easily 
mastered the intricacies of his profession and became one of the ablest 
reasoners and most impressive speakers at our bar. With a probity 
of character known by all ; with an intuitive insight into the human 
heart; with a clearness of statement which was itself an argument; 
with uncommon power and felicity of illustration — often, it is true, 
of a plain and homely kind — and with that sincerity and earnestness 
of manner which carried conviction, he was perhaps one of the most 
successful lawyers we have ever had in the State." 

This is a true picture of Lincoln, the lawyer. No one who 
has ever seen and heard him at the bar can fail to recognize 
the likeness. 

The Bloomington Pantagraph of May 14, 1856, published a 
call for a mass meeting of the voters of McLean County, 
favorable to the Anti-Nebraska movement, to select three del- 
egates to a State Convention to be held in Bloomington on the 
twenty-ninth of May, 1856. This call was signed by John M. 
Scott, W. C. Hobbs, J. H. Wickizer, L. Graves, J. E. McClun, 
Z. Lawrence, James Vandolah, and Leonard Swett. The meet- 



228 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

ing held in pursuance of that call was the first political meet- 
ing I attended in this State. At that meeting, Owen T. 
Reeves was one of the Committee appointed to select del- 
egates. The delegates reported by the Committee and ap- 
pointed by the meeting were, James Gilmore, Dr. Harrison 
Noble, and William W. Orme. The alternates were, Green B. 
Larrison, David Cheney, and A. T. Briscoe. 

The first time I saw and heard Lincoln was at this Anti- 
Nebraska Convention of May 29, 1856, held in Major's Hall. 
I then and there received my first and lasting impressions of 
the logic and eloquence, the power and greatness of Abraham 
Lincoln. 

A great speech requires a righteous cause, an inspiring 
occasion, and a man who measures up to the full height of 
the cause and the occasion. 

What was the cause in whose support former members of 
all the old parties gathered together in that Convention? A 
clear understanding of the cause for which Lincoln spoke 
that day — the one cause for which he made all his political 
speeches — requires a brief historic statement. 

About two years before the adoption of the Constitution, 
the last Congress, sitting under the Articles of Confederation, 
passed what is known as the Ordinance of 1787, for the gov- 
ernment of the territory northwest of the Ohio River and east 
of the Mississippi River, it being all the territory then owned 
by the United States. After the adoption of the Constitution, 
there were formed from this Northwest Territory, the Terri- 
tories — and later, the States — of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michi- 
gan, and Wisconsin. The sixth article of this Ordinance of 
1787, provided that "there shall be neither slavery nor invol- 
untary servitude in the said territory, otherwise than in the 
punishment of crime, whereof the parties shall have been duly 
convicted." Each of the Acts of Congress for the establish- 
ment of territorial governments within this region northwest 
of the Ohio River and east of the Mississippi, required the 
government to be in all respects similar to that provided by 
the Ordinance of 1787. The Enabling Act for the admission 



THE BLOOMINGTON COMMEMORATION 229 

of Illinois into the Union, passed by Congress in 1818, re- 
quired that the Constitution and State government to be 
formed, "shall be republican and not repugnant to the Or- 
dinance of 1787." 

The Ordinance of 1787, the Act of Congress of 1809, es- 
tablishing the Territory of Illinois, and this Enabling Act of 
1818, saved our own State of Illinois from becoming a slave 
state; for slavery, without such barrier, had already taken 
possession of the Territory directly west of us. 

In 1803 we purchased from France the Province of Lou- 
isiana, which extended from the Gulf of Mexico to the British 
possessions and from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Moun- 
tains. In March, 1818, the inhabitants of the Territory of 
Missouri, a portion of the Louisiana Purchase, applied for 
admission into the Union. Nearly all of this Territory lay 
directly west of the free State of Illinois, the Southern boun- 
dary being but a short distance farther south than Cairo, 
and the Northern boundary being as far north as Bloom- 
ington. 

For two years the halls of Congress were the scenes of 
angry debates as to whether Missouri should be admitted as a 
free or a slave State. The bitter struggle was ended for a 
time by an Act of Congress, passed March 6, 1820, which 
enabled Missouri to be admitted as a slave State, and pro- 
vided: "That in all that territory ceded by France to the 
United States, imder the name of Louisiana, which lies north 
of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes north latitude, not 
included within the limits of the State contemplated by this 
Act, slavery and involuntary servitude, otherwise than in the 
punishment of crimes, whereof the parties shall have been 
duly convicted, shall be and is hereby forever prohibited." 

This Act of Congress was known as the Missouri Compro- 
mise. It was confined to the territory purchased from 
France. It prohibited slavery in that portion of the Lou- 
isiana Purchase which was west and north of Missouri, and 
allowed it to go into the portion which was south of Missouri. 

This Compromise was proposed by one of the Senators 



230 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

from Illinois and voted for by both of them. The two 
Senators were Jesse B. Thomas (who proposed it) and 
Ninian Edwards. 

In January, 1854, the Chairman of the Committee on Ter- 
ritories introduced in the Senate of the United States a Bill 
for the organization, out of that territory from which slavei*y 
had been excluded by the Missouri Compromise, of two new 
Territories to be named Kansas and Nebraska. The Bill as 
finally amended, declared that the Missouri Compromise was 
"inoperative and void." The Bill w^as discussed in Congress 
for four months. It was passed by the House, May 22, and by 
the Senate, May 25, 1854. 

The repeal of the Missouri Compromise — the removal of a 
barrier against slavery, which had stood from 1820 to 1854 — 
was attempted to be justified on two inconsistent grounds. 

The Southern advocates of the repeal claimed that the 
slavery restriction in the Compromise of 1820 was unconstitu- 
tional — that the Constitution of the United States gave to the 
citizens of a slave State the right to take their slaves into 
any part of the common territory of the United States, and 
hold them there as property— that their right to do this was 
equal to the right of the citizens of a free State to take and 
hold there their horses or any other kind of property. Said 
Senator Toombs, of Georgia : 

"The Bill leaves with the people of the Territories all the power over 
their domestic institutions which the Constitution permits them to 
exercise. The Bill repeals an Act which excluded the people of the 
slave-holding States from the equal enjoyment of the common territory 
of the Republic." 

The Northern advocates of the repeal based their arguments 
on what they called "The principle of popular sovereignty." 
Said Senator Cass, of Michigan : 

"I have made the doctrine of non intervention, or, in other words, 
the right of self-government of American citizens, so far as it is not 
controlled by the Constitution, one of the principal reasons for the 
adoption of this measure." 

He said that by the term, "popular sovereignty" he meant. 



THE BLOOMINGTON COMMEMORATION 2S1 

"the right of the people to regulate their local and domestic 
affairs in their own way." 

From the day of its introduction in the Senate, the Kansas- 
Nebraska Bill had been debated almost continuously for over 
four months, and then on the day of its final passage, the 
leading Senators who had, throughout that long debate, 
fought against the advancement of slavery into the territory 
consecrated to freedom by the Missouri Compromise — the Sen- 
ator from Ohio, Salmon P. Chase; the Senator from New 
York, William H. Seward, and the Senator from Massachu- 
setts, Charles Sumner — during the closing hours of that fate- 
ful day, spoke unavailing, solemn, almost prophetic words, 
expressive of their intense solicitude for the great and pre- 
cious interests imperilled by that Bill — intense solicitude for 
the peace and even existence of the Union. 

Lincoln, in his brief Autobiography, written at the request 
of Jesse Fell, here in Bloomington, " at a desk in the old court 
room," says: 

"In 1846 I was once elected to the Lower House of Congress — was 
not a candidate for reelection. From 1849 to 1854, both inclusive, 
practised law more assiduously than ever before. Always a Whig in 
politics; and generally on the Whig electoral tickets, making active 
canvasses. I was losing interest in politics when the repeal of the 
Missouri Compromise aroused me again." 

We are now prepared to understand fully what was the 
cause that aroused and brought together, in Major's Hall on 
the twenty-ninth day of May, 1856, so many of the great men 
of the free State of Illinois. 

The cause can be stated in one word — freedom — the pres- 
ervation of free soil for free men in all that territory which 
stretches from the west line of the State of Missouri to the 
Rocky Mountains, and extends northward to the Dominion 
of Canada. It was declared in the Resolution of the Con- 
vention, which resolved: 

"That the repeal of the Missouri Compromise was unwise, unjust, 
and injurious . . . and that we will strive by all constitutional 
means, to secure to Kansas and Nebraska the legal guarantee against 



2S2 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

slavery, of which they were deprived at the cost of the violation of 
the plighted faith of the nation." 

This Resolution was drawn by Lincoln. It was the text 
of his great speech in Major's Hall — it was the text of all 
his political speeches. No one has been able to reproduce 
from memory the line of his argument, still less his forceful 
eloquence, on that occasion. This is not strange. 

Some of you, now here, have heard in this city, as I have, 
able political speeches made by James G. Blaine, Benjamin 
Harrison, Lyman Trumbull, John A. Logan, Richard J. 
Oglesby, John M. Palmer, Owen Lovejoy, Robert G. IngersoU, 
Leonard Swett, and Lawrence Weldon, yet I venture to say 
that none of you can, to-day, state the line of any one of those 
speeches. 

But from Lincoln's other speeches — always on the same 
text — can be formed some idea of the clear statements of 
facts and principles, the convincing logic, the impressive man- 
ner, the power and eloquence of his Major's Hall speech. 

Some of you, as I did, heard Lincoln speak in the Court 
House Square on the afternoon of September 4, 1858. The 
proceedings on that day were reported in the Weekly Panta- 
graph of September 8. Let me recall to your memory the 
long procession, formed under the direction of William Mc- 
Cullough, Chief Marshal, and "Ward H. Lamon, Charles 
Schneider, James O 'Donald, and Henry J. Eager, Assistant 
IMarshals. You saw that procession march to the residence 
of Judge Davis, there receive Lincoln, and then counter-march 
down Washington Street to the public square. 

You saw the banners bearing these mottoes, "Our country, 
our whole country and nothing but our country"; "The 
Union — it must be preserved"; "Freedom is national — slav- 
ery is sectional"; "Honor to the honest. God defend the 
right." 

You then saw above the north door of the old brick Court 
House the representation of a ship in a storm and underneath 
the words, "Don't give up the ship — give her a new pilot." 

The ship came safely into port, and now — this moment — 







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THE BLOOMINGTON COMMEMORATION 233 

there flashes across your minds, the lines of Walt Whitman's 
best poem, "0, Captain, My Captain." 

On that day, September 4, 1858, over fifty years ago, there 
were not less than seven thousand of you in and around 
the public square. The Court House, Phoenix block. Union 
block, and the sidewalks next the square were alive with 
people. Dr. Isaac Baker was the President of the Day, and 
Leonard Swett made the reception speech. 

Lawrence Weldon, then of Clinton, and Samuel C. Parks, 
of Lincoln, spoke in the evening. 

You who heard Lincoln then — listen again to a few of the 
words he spoke in regard to the irrepressible agitation of 
slavery and his own position as to slavery in the slave-holding 
States and freedom in the Territories. Said he : 

"It is not merely an agitation got up to help men into office. 
. . . The same cause has rent asunder the great Methodist and 
Presbyterian churches. ... It will not cease until a crisis has 
been reached and passed. When the public mind rests in the belief 
that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction it will become 
quiet. We have no right to interfere with slavery in the States. 
We only want to restrict it where it is. We have never had an 
agitation except when it was endeavored to spread it. . . . The 
framers of the Constitution prohibited slavery (not in the Constitu- 
tion, but the same men did it) north of the Ohio River where it 
did not exist, and did not prohibit it south of that River where it 
did exist. ... I fight slavery in its advancing phase, and wish 
to place it in the same attitude that the framers of the government 
did." 

This was a clear statement that the agitation of the slavery 
question, which had rent in twain the churches, would not 
cease until the public mind should rest in the belief that slav- 
ery was in the course of ultimate extinction — a clear statement 
that we of the North had no right to interfere with slavery 
in the Southern States, but should resist its further advance- 
ment into the national Territories. 

Viewed from a political standpoint, this was the position 
of Lincoln — it was the platform of his party. But from the 
day he made his Major's Hall Speech, he never lost sight of 
the moral question as to whether slavery was right or wrong. 



2S4 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

In his Alton speech, made on the fifteenth of October, 1858, 
he said : 

'"That is the real issue. ... It is the eternal struggle between 
two principles — right and wrong — throughout the world. They are the 
two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time; 
and will ever continue to struggle. The one is the common right of 
humanity, and the other the 'divine riglit of kings.' It is the same 
principle in whatever shape it develops itself. It is the same spirit 
that says, 'You toil and work and earn bread, and I '11 eat it.' No 
matter in what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king 
who seeks to bestride the people of his own nation and live by the 
fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as an apology for en- 
slaving another race, it is the same tyrannical principle." 

You will bear in mind that Lincoln's Springfield speech 
of June 17, 1858, his Bloomington speech of September 4, 
1858, and this Alton speech of October 15, 1858, wherein he 
stated that the struggle between freedom and slavery was only 
one form of the eternal struggle between right and wrong, 
were all made before William H. Seward, on the twenty-fifth 
of October, 1858, at Rochester, New York, made his celebrated 
"irrepressible conflict" speech. 

Perhaps the strength and force of Lincoln's reasoning 
powers and intense convictions is best shown by a brief extract 
from his Cooper Institute speech in New York : 

"If slavery is right, all words, acts, laws, and constitutions against 
it are tliemselves wrong, and should be silenced and swept away. If 
it is right, we (the North) cannot justly object to its nationality — 
its universality; if it is wrong, they (the South) cannot justly insist 
upon its extension — its enlargement. All they ask we could readily 
grant, if we thought slavery right; all we ask they could as readily 
grant, if they thought it wrong. Their thinking it right and our 
thinking it wrong is the precise fact upon which depends the whole 
controversy. . . . Wrong as we think slavery is, we can yet afford 
to let it alone where it is, because that much is due to the necessity 
arising from its actual presence in the nation ; but can we, while 
our votes will prevent it, allow it to spread into the national Terri- 
tories, and to overrun us here in these free States? If our sense of 
dirty forbids this, then let us stand by our duty fearlessly and effec- 
tively. . . . Let us have faith that right makes might, and in 
that faith let us to the end dare to do our duty as we understand it." 



THE BLOOMINGTON COMMEMORATION 235 

From these extracts from his political speeches, and from 
his recorded words uttered in his two Inaugural Addresses 
and at Gettysburg, you know that here was a man equal to 
any occasion — a leader on all occasions. 

Who were the men who were present on the twenty-ninth 
of May, 1856, in Major's Hall, and heard Lincoln's speech on 
that occasion? Several of them in after years received from 
Illinois her highest honors : — The President of the Convention, 
John M. Palmer, Governor, United States Senator; 0. H. 
Browning, United States Senator, Secretary of the Interior, 
Acting Attorney-General of the United States ; Richard Yates, 
Governor, United States Senator; Richard J. Oglesby, three 
times Governor, United States Senator; David Davis, Justice 
of the Supreme Court of the United States, United States 
Senator, Acting Vice-President. 

The Convention was called to order at ten o'clock. As 
stated by General Palmer at the meeting of May 29, 1900, 
commemorative of this Convention, "The Convention was 
created by the intense hostility of the American people to the 
extension of human slavery into free territory. 

Palmer and Cook spoke in the forenoon. Owen Lovejoy, 
Lincoln, and Burton C. Cook spoke in the afternoon. Palmer 
and Cook were old Democrats; Yates and Browning were old 
Whigs; and Owen Lovejoy was a Liberty Party man. 

The next issue of the Weekly Pantograph (June 4, 1856) 
gives the following editorial account of the proceedings: 

"We never saw such unanimity and enthusiasm manifested in a 
similar assemblage. . . . Men were here acting in counsel and 
harmony, who have hitherto been antipodes in political parties. . . . 
Although six candidates were nominated for State officers, not a ballot 
was cast ... all were unanimously nominated by acclamation," 

Let me stop a moment to say that all the candidates of 
the new party then and there organized were elected — the 
gallant Colonel William H. Bissell for Governor, and, for 
State Treasurer, our own James Miller, in remembrance of 
whom Bloomington has named her beautiful park and lake. 

Now, listen while I read the concluding part of the Panta- 
graph editorial — a statement so concise, so terse, so true : 



236 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

"Several most heart-stirring and powerful speeches were made during 
the Convention; but without being invidious, we must say tliat Mr. 
Lincoln on Thursday evening surpassed all others — even himself. His 
points were unanswerable, and the force and power of his appeals, 
irresistible — and were received with a storm of applause." 

Some of us, a few, heard that "storm of applause," at the 
close of Lincoln's Major's Hall Speech, and some of us, a few, 
four years later in the Wigwam at Chicago, heard the "thun- 
derous" applause that followed the announcement of his 
nomination for the presidency of the United States. 

Listen again while I read the editorial correspondence of 
The Democratic Press of Chicago, written that night at eleven 
o'clock (May 29, eleven p. m.) : 

"Abraham Lincoln of Springfield was next called out, and made the 
speech of the occasion. Never has it been our fortune to listen to a 
more eloquent and masterly presentation of a subject. I shall not 
mar any of its proportions or brilliant passages by attempting even 
a synopsis of it. Mr. Lincoln must write it out and let it go before 
all the people. For an hour and a half he held the assemblage spell- 
bound by the power of his argument, the intense irony of his invective, 
and tlie deep earnestness and fervid brilliancy of his eloquence. When 
he concluded, the audience sprang to their feet, and cheer after cheer 
told how deeply their hearts had been touched, and their souls warmed 
up to a generous enthusiasm." 

Listen to the testimony of John G. Nieolay, one of the 
authors of Nieolay and Hay's, "Abraham Lincoln: A His- 
tory": 

"I had the good fortune to be one of the delegates from Pike 
County in the Bloomington Convention of 1856, and to hear the in- 
spiring address delivered by Abraham Lincoln at its close, which held 
the audience in such rapt attention that the reporters dropped their 
pencils and forgot their work." 

Governor Palmer in his "Bench and Bar of Illinois" (page 
538) has put on record this statement : 

"At the Bloomington State Convention in 1856, where the new party 
first assumed form in Illinois, Lincoln made the greatest speech in 
hia life, in which, for the first time, he took distinctive grounds against 



THE BLOOMINGTON COMMEMORATION 237 

slavery in itself. Thenceforth he became the leader of his party in the 
State." 

Again, at the meeting in 1900, commemorative of the Con- 
vention, Governor Palmer said : 

"Mr. Lincoln made a speech before the Convention, which was of 
marvellous power and force and fully vindicated the new movement in 
opposition to the repeal of the Missouri Compromise." 

General Thomas J. Henderson was a delegate to the Conven- 
tion, and afterwards for twenty years a member of Congress. 
This is what he said at the commemorative meeting in 1900 : 

"The great speech of that Convention was the speech made by 
Abraham Lincoln. His speech was of such wonderful eloquence and 
power that it fairly electrified the members of the Convention and 
everybody who heard it. It was a great speech, in what he said, in 
the burning eloquence of his words, and in the manner in which he 
delivered it. If ever such a speech was inspired in this world, it 
has always seemed to me that that speech of Mr. Lincoln's was. It 
aroused the Convention, and all who heard it sympathized with the 
speaker, to the highest pitch of enthusiasm. I have never heard any 
other speech that had such a great power and influence over those 
to whom it was addressed. I have always believed it to have been the 
greatest speech Mr. Lincoln ever made, and the greatest speech to 
which I ever listened." 

On the twenty-eighth day of January, 1865, Mr. Lincoln 
signed the Joint Resolution of Congress, proposing, in almost 
the very words of the Ordinance of 1787 and of the Missouri 
Compromise of 1820, the Thirteenth Amendment of the Con- 
stitution of the United States, whereby slavery was prohibited 
in every place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. 
Then his part of the great work was done. By that Amend- 
ment the one object — freedom — for which he made all his 
political speeches, was fully attained. 

His Bloomington Speech in Major's Hall made Lincoln the 
Illinois leader of a new party which, within one year, took 
possession of our State government, and four years later 
placed him at the head of the nation. 

The roof and walls of Major's Hall have long since disap- 



238 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

peared. The place where Lincoln stood is open to the free 
"currents of the air," beneath the glory of the sun and the 
"silent light of stars." That speech was never "lost." Its 
influence and inspiration went with the great men who heard 
it — men who had no small part in making this continental 
nation an "indestructible Union" of free States. 



THE PEORIA COMMEMORATION 



THE PEORIA COMMEMORATION 

NO feature, perhaps, of the universal celebration of the 
Lincoln Centenary so well indicated the wide-spread in- 
terest in the life and history of Lincoln, as the participation 
of the various foreign ministers to this country. At the cele- 
bration at Peoria, Illinois, the name of Baron Takahira, Am- 
bassador from Japan, headed the list of prominent speakers 
and distinguished guests. 

At noon, a special train convoying the distinguished guests 
from away was met by a committee of prominent Peorians, 
an elaborate luncheon being served at the Country Club at 
three o'clock in the afternoon, followed by a reception at the 
Creve Coeur Club from four to five o'clock. The Peoria ob- 
servance took many forms (including exercises in all the 
schools, and at the churches), ending, in the evening of Feb- 
ruary 12, with a banquet at the Creve Coeur Club, where, in 
the big Coliseum building — starred with thousands of daz- 
zling electric lights, and gay with red, white, and blue bunt- 
ing — beneath a canopy of the Stars and Stripes, interwoven 
with the Sun Flag of Japan, the representative of the Island 
Empire spoke to seven hundred guests, of Lincoln's inaugura- 
tion of *'The American Diplomacy." 

Among the other speakers were the Hon, Charles Magoon, 
former Provisional Governor of Cuba, the Hon. Curtis Guild, 
Jr., Ex-Governor of Massachusetts, and Professor John Clark 
Freeman, formerly United States Minister to Denmark, also 
Counsel-General of Copenhagen, but now of the University of 
Wisconsin. Professor Freeman was a soldier and officer in 
the Civil War, serving from 1862 to the close of the great 
conflict. 



i6 241 



LINCOLN'S DIPLOMACY 

KOGORO TAKAHIRA 

I FIRST received your invitation, if I remember right, as 
long ago as March last. You gave me ample time to make 
a good speech, but I confess I have spent the most part of it 
carelessly, as I have always thought that I had plenty of time 
to do it, but when I began to prepare my speech a few days 
ago, I found that Lincoln's greatness as a man and as a public 
servant has been exhaustively described in so many "Lives" 
and "Biographies" that all patriotic citizens of this country 
must be fully familiar with it. There is no room for any 
additional remarks from such a stranger as myself. If, how- 
ever, I should be required to say what has impressed me most 
strongly in his life and character, I would mention that the 
nobleness of his heart and the generosity of his mind, amply 
verified in every detail by acts and conduct which leave no 
trace of personal motives in his management of public affairs, 
but abound in every proof of the sincerity of his desire for 
the good of his country and fellow-beings, are fully illustrative 
of the life and character of a statesman idealized by all men 
of every nationality. Lincoln left in his life a great example 
of a public man, not only for his own, but for all countries. 
So it is no wonder that his fame is world-wide and adorns the 
universal history of the modern age, as one of the greatest men 
that ever lived. 

Another feature of his life which appears particularly in- 
teresting and instructive to me as a diplomat, was his method 
of conducting the foreign affairs of this country. The Civil 
War did so much to endanger the international position of the 
United States as to threaten the internal solidity of the Union, 
and in so great adversity it must have required extraordinary 
power of foresight and precision, as well as an unusual com- 
mand of resolution and courage, to handle such intricate 

242 



THE PEORIA COMMEMORATION 243 

questions of foreign affairs as the United States had to face at 
that time. It is true that Lincoln had a great, able man for 
his Secretary of State in the person of William H. Seward, 
but if his biographies which I have read are to be depended on, 
Mr. Lincoln himself had often to examine important diplomatic 
documents drawn by Secretary Seward with great skill and 
care, and to amend them in many particulars in order to com- 
municate to the powers interested, the exact motives and 
intentions of the American Government in those straight- 
forward and forceful expressions, coupled with a sense of 
moderation and dignity, which made the American diplomacy 
so famous at the chancelleries of those Powers. Those who 
learned to admire his method of diplomatic transaction, called 
it "Lincoln's diplomacy" — the diplomacy which upheld the 
dignity and interest of the United States when she still re- 
mained in a less important position and under very adverse 
circumstances. Mr. John Hay, who was once President Lin- 
coln's private secretary, said, in speaking of American di- 
plomacy, "The briefest expression of our rule of conduct is 
perhaps the Monroe Doctrine and the Golden Rule." The 
origin of the Monroe Doctrine as the policy to be observed in 
the affaire of this hemisphere is too well known to everyone 
to require any explanation. But Mr. Hay's expression of 
the Golden Rule as the rule of American diplomacy, attracted 
the great admiration of every student of international affairs 
when it was announced. The idea was not only plausible in 
expression, but irresistible in effect, and it was considered 
most adapted to this great country from the point of view of 
its dignity as well as its interest. I regret I did not ask Mr. 
Hay, when I had to see him so often, where he obtained that 
expression. It may be the result of his own conviction of 
American diplomacy. But it is possible that he conceived 
such an idea when he was so closely associated with the great 
President, from his method of handling international deal- 
ings with all the powers, the proudest as well as the humblest. 
The history of the diplomatic relations between the United 
States and Japan and other Far Eastern countries is replete 
with incidents of friendly acts on the part of this country 



244 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

which might be considered as an application of the Golden 
Rule ; and there is every reason to believe that such applica- 
tion of the Golden Rule in your diplomatic dealings with those 
countries is being rewarded by the adoption of the same rule 
in their diplomatic attitude towards you. 

Now, let me make a few remarks here about our relations, 
in order to show you how the Golden Rule has been observed 
between the two countries, and also why it must be observed. 

I have necessarily to begin with the remarkable success of 
Commodore Perry's mission to Japan some half century ago, 
to open and introduce into the community of nations the 
country which was then only terra incognita. Not speaking 
of the great debt of gratitude Japan owes the United States 
for her friendly introduction into the international commun- 
ity, it is a noteworthy fact that the American Government 
has been particularly careful in the selection of its representa- 
tives in Japan in order to accomplish what has been left for 
them to do by Perry's mission. 

Townsend Harris, your first Minister to Japan, was espe- 
cially remarkable as a man of large heart and broad mind. 
In regard to his achievements in Japan, a certain writer says : 

"It was thus that from the very outset, American diplomacy as- 
sumed in the eyes of the Japanese a distinctive aspect. They learned 
to regard the Washington statesmen as their country's well-wishers, 
whose policy no element of aggressive masterfulness disfigured or would 
ever disfigure." 

The example thus set by Townsend Harris was followed by 
almost all American representatives who came to Japan there- 
after, and it is interesting to look back at what has character- 
ized their action and attitude in all the vicissitudes of life 
Japan has had to pass through since then. She had, from 
time to time, to meet complications of all kinds, to face revolu- 
tionary movements of her own people, to recognize the 
political system of the Empire, to remodel the administrative 
and judicial systems of the country, to introduce a representa- 
tive form of government, to revise the treaties with the 
Western powers, and even to fight two great foreign wars. 



THE PEORIA COMMEMORATION 245 

In all these difficult and vexed works and undertakings the 
American Minister almost always sympathized with Japan, 
and often took our side, even by isolating himself from among 
his colleagues. It is through such friendly attitude taken 
by the American representative, of course supported by your 
Government, that the American people are deeply endeared 
to ours, and we want to reciprocate what has been done for 
us. We have never had an idea for a moment of displeasing 
your people, much less of waging war against you. 

It was for this reason that when displeasure was manifested 
in this country in regard to Japanese immigration, we readily 
consented to the adjustment of the question under certain 
conditions, by limiting the immigration of laborers to the 
minimiun number. As a consequence, emigration has been 
greatly reduced — notably since last July — and it is found that 
during the latter half of 1908 the number of Japanese immi- 
grants who returned to Japan from continental United States 
was larger by twenty-one hundred than that of those who 
arrived in this country ; and the number of those who returned 
to Japan from the Hawaiian Islands was also fifteen hundred 
in excess of those which arrived there from Japan. 

While it is not certain how long this condition of movement 
will continue, it is possible that every half year hereafter for 
some years will witness the decrease of Japanese residents in 
this country in about the same proportion. It is said in some 
quarters that our laborers are coming to this country across 
the Canadian and Mexican borders, but we have already pro- 
hibited the immigration of laborers into those countries under 
certain conditions, and there is no ground whatever for the 
apprehension of their coming through those frontiers — except 
a smuggled few, if any. 

Again, when there was some apprehension of a misunder- 
standing arising between us in regard to trademarks, copy- 
rights, and other matters of kindred nature on the Asiatic 
continent, the two governments at once opened negotiations 
and concluded conventions with the view of protecting our 
mutual interests in this regard. We also signed a Treaty for 
the general arbitration of controversies between the two 



24,6 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

countries, and, lastly, as you are undoubtedly aware, we ex- 
changed, a few months ago, a Declaration defining the policy 
of the two governments in China and the Pacific Ocean, with 
a view to encouraging the free and peaceful development of 
the commerce of the two nations, and also to preserve the 
general peace in that region. Thus we have been using every 
effort not only to remove all possible causes of misunderstand- 
ing and conflict, but to bring about a clear and definite under- 
standing between the two countries in order to cement the 
closest bond of friendship and good neighborliness. All this, 
I venture to say, is the result of the application of the Golden 
Rule in your diplomacy and of the adoption of the same rule 
in ours, and I most emphatically declare that so long as the 
Golden Rule is considered the guiding principle of our di- 
plomacy, we shall be enabled to enjoy the benefits of peace 
and prosperity; and this must be, I dare say, in accordance 
with the high ideal forever fixed by Lincoln's diplomacy, and 
which is so energetically applied and propagated by another 
great President, Mr. Theodore Roosevelt. 



LINCOLN, THE MAN OF THE PEOPLE * 

EDWIN MAEKHAM 

WHEN the Norn Mother saw the Whirlwind Hour 
Greatening and darkening as it hurried on, 
She left the Heaven of Heroes and came down 
To make a man to meet the mortal need. 
She took the tried clay of the common road — 
Clay warm yet with the ancient heat of Earth — 
Dashed through it all a strain of prophecy; 
Tempered the heap with thrill of human tears ; 
Then mixed a laughter with the serious stuff. 
Into the shape she breathed a flame to light 
That tender, tragic, ever-changing face. 
Here was a man to hold against the world, 
A man to match the mountains and the sea. 

The color of the ground was in him, the red earth ; 

The smack and tang of elemental things ; 

The rectitude and patience of the cliff; 

The good-will of the rain that falls for all ; 

The friendly welcome of the wayside well; 

The courage of the bird that dares the sea ; 

The gladness of the wind that shakes the corn ; 

The mercy of the snow that hides all scars; 

The secrecy of streams that make their way 

Beneath the mountain to the rifted rock ; 

The undelaying justice of the light 

That gives as freely to the shrinking flower 

As to the great oak flaring to the wind — 

To the grave's low hill as to the Matterhom 

That shoulders out the sky. 

* Copyright, 1909, by Edwin Markh'am. 

247 



248 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Sprung from the West, 
The strength of virgin forests braced his mind, 
The hush of spacious prairies stilled his soul. 
Up from log cabin to the Capitol, 
One fire was on his spirit, one resolve — 
To send the keen ax to the root of wrong. 
Clearing a free way for the feet of God. 
And evermore he burned to do his deed 
With the fine stroke and gesture of a king. 
He built the rail-pile as he built the State, 
Pouring his splendid strength through every blow, 
The conscience of him testing every stroke, 
To make his deed the measure of a man. 

So came the Captain with the thinking heart; 
And when the judgment thunders split the house. 
Wrenching the rafters from their ancient rest, 
He held the ridgepole up, and spiked again 
The rafters of the Home. He held his place — 
Held the long purpose like a growing tree — 
Held on through blame, and faltered not at praise. 
And when he fell in whirlwind, he went down 
As when a lordly cedar, green with boughs, 
Goes down with a great shout upon the hills. 
And leaves a lonesome place against the sky. 



THE HODGENVILLE COMMEMORATION 



THE HODGENVILLE COMMEMORATION 

A CELEBRATION which focused the attention of the 
country, as a whole, perhaps more than any other, 
was that at the Kentucky town of Hodgenville, within whose 
outlying country lies the birthplace of Abraham Lincoln. 
There, on the farm upon which Lincoln was born, which has 
been purchased by a National Association formed for that 
purpose, largely initiated and made successful through the 
untiring efforts and enthusiasm of Mr. Robert J. Collier, the 
log cabin in which Lincoln first saw the light has been restored. 
Here was held a celebration national in character, and show- 
ing the unity, to-day, of the North and South of the Ameri- 
can nation. With the President of the United States, Mr. 
Roosevelt, laying the cornerstone of a memorial building be- 
ing erected by popular subscription to protect the log cabin 
in which Lincoln was born, this gathering typifies, as well 
as any meeting^ could, the significance of the day. 

Exercises were conducted under an immense spreading tent 
with open sides, sheltering the Lincoln cabin and the speakers' 
platform ; while the cornerstone, a block of gray granite about 
three feet square, crowned with flowers, hung in the grasp 
of a great derrick, awaiting the signal of the President, when, 
at the close of the speeches of the day, it should be lowered 
into its place, and the first trowelful of mortar applied by the 
President of the United States. Beneath the cornerstone had 
been placed a metallic box containing copies of the Constitu- 
tion of the United States and other documents of historic 
value, contributed by the President, by Clarence Mackay, 
Robert J. Collier, and Richard Lloyd Jones of New York. 

In addition to the President, who spoke for the Nation, the 
speakers were : — Gen. Luke E. "Wright, the Secretary of War, 
himself a soldier, who spoke on behalf of the Confederate 
soldiers ; Gen. James Grant Wilson of New York, representing 

251 



252 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

the soldiers of the Union Army; Governor Willson of Ken- 
tucky, who, representing the native State of Lincoln, gave 
the address of welcome to the distinguished visitors present; 
and Ex-Governor Folk of Missouri, who made the address on 
behalf of the Lincoln Farm Association. 

One of the features of the day was the reading of the Eman- 
cipation Proclamation by the "representative of ten million 
grateful negro citizens, ' ' Ira T. Montgomery, who though now 
of Mount Bayou, Mississippi, is nevertheless a native of Ken- 
tucky, and is said to have been a slave of Jefferson Davis, 
President of the Confederacy. 

The cabin and the Lincoln spring — over which a stone arch 
had been erected — were decorated with the national colors. 
Every visitor wanted to drink at the spring, and the crowd 
had to form in line, each awaiting his turn. 

That the South is not unmindful of the cause for pride 
that may well be hers in that Lincoln is one of her sons, is 
evidenced by the beautiful statue designed by the sculptor 
Adolph Alexander Weinman, and erected through the action 
of the State of Kentucky and the Lincoln Farm Association, 
in the Court House Square of the village of Hodgenville. 
Here, Lincoln is shown a man of the people; and, standing 
pedestaled in the market place of the little town which gave 
him birth, he looks out down the sandy roads which lead 
into the simple country where nature first taught him the 
lessons of his life, and where soon will arise the exquisite 
marble memorial whose cornerstone has been laid by one 
President, Theodore Roosevelt, and whose dedication will be 
at the hands, and with the voice of a second President, Wil- 
liam 11. Taft. 



A SON OF KENTUCKY 

AUGUSTUS E. WILLSON 

nrVD the President of the United States, the Commonwealth 
JL of Kentucky — one of the first twain daughters of the 
Union — and all of her people, give most cordial salute and 
welcome; and not less to Theodore Roosevelt, first citizen, 
loved, trusted and honored of the people. To all of the 
people of the Union here splendidly represented, our distin- 
guished visitors and guests, and to the men of the Lincoln 
Farm Association, we give greeting, and rejoice to have you 
with us in Kentucky and to join you in this endeavor and in 
all the inspirations and associations of this time and place. 

We have met here in memory of Abraham Lincoln, to know 
for ourselves and to prove to the world by a record made to 
endure, and deep-graven on these acres, that love of country 
and of its nobly useful citizens are not dreams nor idle words, 
but indeed living, stirring and breathing feelings. Abraham 
Lincoln is claimed by all humanity, and all time, as the type 
of the race best showing forth the best in all men in all con- 
ditions of life. 

Our whole country claims him as the son of the whole 
Union. And Illinois says, "He was mine, the man of Illinois ; 
here on my prairies he ripened into noble manhood and here 
he made his home." 

Indiana, too, says, '*He was mine. In my southern hills 
the little child grew strong and tall." And each is right and 
true. 

But Kentucky says, **I am his own mother. I nursed him 
at my breast; my baby, born of me. He is mine." Shall 
any claim come before the mother's? 

All over this land the people are meeting to-day to honor 
the one hundredth year's return of his birthday. And we 

253 



254 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

are met in his birthplace to pledge anew the love of all the 
people of our land for each other, and to show forth now, and 
year by year, our love and reverence for the man, the soul, 
the life, which more than any in all the lives of all the earth 
in all the ages, stands out as the very type and sight of numan 
Bature in its best loved, and its noblest vision. 

He came from the rugged man-making school of poverty 
and hardship, with all man's lot of toil and trial, of sorrow 
and storm, unto the end that he, most kindly and homelike of 
friendly neighbors, should stand out, grand and alone, to lead 
a mighty people and a noble land safe through a storm of 
mortal strife and danger to the blessings of Union and peace 
under the Constitution and the law. He came to give 
liberty to every soul in all our broad domain, to the glory of 
God and all our land for all the ages. 

As he said for the soldiers at Gettysburg, "We can not 
dedicate, we can not consecrate this ground." We meet here 
in Kentucky on the farm where he was born, to be consecrated 
and dedicated in the grace and beauty of his great spirit, to 
the work of upholding and keeping safe our Union, which he 
so nobly led and helped to save. 

And when we try to tell the story of his life and work and 
his prophetic sayings, we find that nearly fifty j^ears ago, as 
one inspired of God, he foresaw all and spoke all that we can 
say or think here, better and sweeter than mortal man could 
ever speak again. 

To him more than any other man we owe — and shall for all 
time owe — the joy, the power, and the gift of grace of a mighty 
people joined together as they never were before, under one 
flag and one covenant of the law. 

And at last all see, what only part could see at first, the 
vital truth of the text to which he turned at Chicago before 
the election, "A house divided against itself can not stand," 
repeated on the great seal of Kentucky, "United we stand, 
divided we fall." 

Looking back now through nearly forty-seven years of 
mighty history, how strong, how wise, how clear, how pro- 
phetic, and how great are his inaugural words: 



THE HODGENVILLE COMMEMORATION 255 

"In view of the Constitution and the laws, the Union is unbroken, 
and . . . will constitutionally maintain and defend itself." 

"This great country with its institutions, belongs to the people who 
inhabit it." 

"Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate jus- 
tice of the people? Is there any better or equal hope in the world? 
In our present differences, is either party without faith of being in 
the right? If the Almighty Ruler of Nations, with His eternal truth 
and justice, be on your side of the North, or on yours of the South, that 
truth and that justice will surely prevail by the judgment of this great 
tribunal of the American people." 

For him there is no need of any memorial place or token. 
He lives and will forever live in the hearts of all the people of 
the earth as the man of the people, grand in simple, noble 
dignity, almost strange in wisdom and prophetic foresight as 
if it were a gift direct from God. 

Simple and tender in life and feeling as a child, ready 
to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven, yet brave as a spirit 
of truth, immovable from right purpose, blessed with a humor 
such as to no man else was ever given, which turned aside 
wrath and softened the rigor of mortal strife, his courage and 
his work breathed life and hope and faith until it came to 
pass that in the fiery furnace of a mighty war, hate and strife 
melted into the pure gold of Union. 

Here are met to-day, with equal zeal to do him honor, sol- 
diers of the War for and against the Union, heroes of the 
Union and the Confederacy, Americans all, no one less pledged 
than the other, not only by the bond of the covenant of our 
law, but alike by the dearest feelings of his heart and fervor 
of his blood, to our united country and its beautiful flag. 

Oh, God of our fathers, look down upon our land and bless 
us all, strengthen the bonds of our affection and help us for- 
ever to keep the covenant of "peace on earth and good will to 
men." 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

HON. THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

WE have met here to celebrate the hundredth anniversary 
of the birth of one of the two greatest Americans; of 
one of the two or three greatest men of the nineteenth cen- 
tury ; of one of the greatest men in the world 's history. This 
rail-splitter — this boy who passed his ungainly youth in the 
dire poverty of the poorest of the frontier folk, whose rise 
was by weary and painful labor — lived to lead his people 
through the burning flames of a struggle from which the 
nation emerged, purified as by fire, born anew to a loftier 
life. After long years of iron effort, and of failure that came 
more often than victory, he at last rose to the leadership of 
the Republic at the moment when that leadership had become 
the stupendous world-task of the time. He grew to know 
greatness, but never ease. Success came to him, but never 
happiness, save that which springs from doing well a painful 
and a vital task. Power was his, but not pleasure. The fur- 
rows deepened on his brow, but his eyes were undimmed by 
either hate or fear. His gaunt shoulders were bowed, but his 
steel thews never faltered as he bore for a burden the destinies 
of his people. His great and tender heart shrank from giving 
pain; and the task allotted him was to pour out like water 
the life blood of the young men, and to feel in his every fibre 
the sorrow of the women. Disaster saddened but never dis- 
mayed him. As the red years of war went by they found 
him ever doing his duty in the present, ever facing the future 
with fearless front — high of heart, and dauntless of soul. 
Unbroken by hatred, unshaken by scorn, he worked and suf- 
fered for the people. Triumph was his at the last ; and barely 
had he tasted it before murder found him, and the kindly, 
patient, fearless eyes were closed forever. 

256 



THE HODGENVILLE COMMEMORATION 257 

As a people we are, indeed, beyond measure fortunate in 
the characters of the two greatest of our public men, "Wash- 
ington and Lincoln. Widely though they differed in ex- 
ternals — the Virginia landed gentleman and the Kentucky 
backswoodsman — they were alike in essentials ; they were alike 
in the great qualities which made each able to do service to 
his nation and to all mankind such as no other man of his 
generation could or did render. Each had lofty ideals, but 
each in striving to attain these lofty ideals was guided by the 
soundest common sense. Each possessed inflexible courage in 
adversity, and a soul wholly unspoiled by prosperity. Each 
possessed all the gentler virtues commonly exhibited by good 
men who lack rugged strength of character. Each possessed, 
also, all the strong qualities commonly exhibited by those 
towering masters of mankind who have too often shown them- 
selves devoid of so much as the understanding of the words 
by which we signify the qualities of duty, of mercy, of devo- 
tion to the right, of lofty disinterestedness in battling for the 
good of others. There have been other men as great, and other 
men as good; but in all the history of mankind there are no 
other two great men as good as these, no other two good men 
as great. Widely though the problems of to-day differ from 
the problems set for solution to Washington when he founded 
this nation, to Lincoln when he saved it and freed the slave, 
yet the qualities they showed in meeting these problems are 
exactly the same as those we should show in doing our work 
to-day. 

Lincoln saw into the future with the prophetic imagination 
usually vouchsafed only to the poet and the seer. He had in 
him all the lift toward greatness of the visionary, without 
any of the visionary's fanaticism or egotism — without any of 
the visionary's narrow jealousy of the practical man, and 
inability to strive in practical fashion for the realization of 
an ideal. He had the practical man's hard common sense 
and willingness to adapt means to ends ; but there was in him 
none of that morbid growth of mind and soul which blinds 
so many practical men to the higher things of life. No more 
practical man ever lived than this homely backwoods idealist ; 



258 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

but he had nothing in common with those practical men whose 
consciences are warped until they fail to distinguish between 
good and evil, fail to understand that strength, ability, 
shrewdness, whether in the world of business or of politics, 
only serve to make their possessor a more noxious, a more evil, 
member of the community if they are not guided and con- 
trolled by a fine and high moral sense. 

We of this day must try to solve many social and industrial 
problems, requiring to an especial degree the combination of 
indomitable resolution with cool-headed sanity. We can profit 
by the way in which Lincoln used both these traits as he 
strove for reform. We can learn much of value from the 
very attacks which following that course brought upon his 
head — attacks alike by the extremists of revolution and by the 
extremists of reaction. He never wavered in devotion to his 
principles, in his love for the Union, and in his abhorrence of 
slavery. Timid and lukewarm people were always denounc- 
ing him because he was too extreme; but as a matter of fact 
he never went to extremes, he worked step by step; and be- 
cause of this the extremists hated and denounced him with 
a fervor which now seems to us fantastic in its deification of 
the unreal and the impossible. At the very time when one 
side was holding him up as the apostle of social revolution 
because he was against slavery, the leading abolitionist de- 
nounced him as the "slave hound of Illinois." When he was 
the second time candidate for President, the majority of his 
opponents attacked him because of what they termed his ex- 
treme radicalism, while a minority threatened to bolt his 
nomination because he was not radical enough. He had con- 
tinually to check those who wished to go forward too fast, at 
the very time that he overrode the opposition of those who 
wished not to go forward at all. The goal was never dim 
before his vision ; but he picked his way cautiously, without 
either halt or hurry, as he strode toward it, through such a 
morass of difficulty that no man of less courage would have 
attempted it, while it would surely have overwhelmed any 
man of judgment less serene. 




Statue of Al)raliain Lincoln liy A(lol[)li Alexander Weiniiian, Mrected in 

the Public Sciuare of Ho(l;;('nville, Kentucky, by the State of 

Kentucky and the Lincoln Farm Association 

(Mr. Weinman was a pupil of Angnstus Saint-Gandens) 



THE HODGENVILLE COMMEMORATION 259 

Yet perhaps the most wonderful thing of all, and, from the 
standpoint of the America of to-day and of the future, the 
most vitally important, was the extraordinary way in which 
Lincoln could fight valiantly against what he deemed wrong, 
and yet preserve undiminished his love and respect for the 
brother from whom he differed. In the hour of a triumph that 
would have turned any weaker man's head, in the heat of a 
struggle which spurred many a good man to dreadful vin- 
dictiveness, he said truthfully that so long as he had been in 
his office he had never willingly planted a thorn in any man's 
bosom, and besought his supporters to study the incidents of 
the trial through which they were passing, as philosophy from 
which to learn wisdom, and not as wrongs to be avenged ; 
ending with the solemn exhortation that, as the strife was 
over, all should reunite in a common effort to save their com- 
mon country. 

He lived in days that were great and terrible, when brother 
fought against brother for what each sincerely deemed to be 
the right. In a contest so grim, the strong men who alone 
can carry it through are rarely able to do justice to the deep 
convictions of those with whom they grapple in mortal strife. 
At such times men see through a glass darkly ; to only the 
rarest and loftiest spirits is vouchsafed that clear vision which 
gradually comes to all, even to the lesser, as the struggle fades 
into distance, and wounds are forgotten, and peace creeps 
back to the hearts that were hurt. But to Lincoln was given 
this supreme vision. He did not hate the man from whom he 
differed. Weakness was as foreign as wickedness to his 
strong, gentle nature ; but his courage was of a quality so high 
that it needed no bolstering of dark passion. He saw clearly 
that the same high qualities, the same courage, and willingness 
for self-sacrifice and devotion to the right, as it was given 
them to see the right, belonged both to the men of the North 
and to the men of the South. As the years roll by, and as all 
of us, wherever we dwell, grow to feel an equal pride in the 
valor and self-devotion, alike of the men who wore the blue 
and the men who wore the gray, so this whole nation will 



260 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

grow to feel a peculiar sense of pride in the mightiest of the 
mighty men who mastered the mighty days; the lover of his 
country and of all mankind ; the man whose blood was shed 
for the union of his people and for the freedom of a race — 
Abraham Lincoln. 



LINCOLN AND THE LOST CAUSE 

HON. LUKE E. WRIGHT 

WE are assembled to-day upon the spot where Abraham 
Lincoln was born, to celebrate the hundredth anni- 
versary of his birth. When we look about us and behold a 
great and prosperous State, teeming with population and all 
the evidences of a highly developed and complex civilization, 
it requires an effort of the memory to recall how crude and 
primitive were his surroundings when his eyes fii'st saw the 
light, and during his boyhood. 

He was born of humble parentage, in a rude cabin of logs. 
His entry into the world was accompanied by no omens, and 
no seer prognosticated his future fame. Apparently his only 
heritage was to be a life of ignorance and poverty. 

Still, it would be misleading to infer that the future could 
hold no prize for him. The hardy adventurers who swarmed 
out from the older States and crossed the Alleghenies were 
the offshoot of that older stock of English, Scotch, and Irish 
which had crossed the seas and had founded the first colonies 
upon American soil. They were a simple. God-fearing people, 
who lived their lives in field and forest, uncorrupted by 
wealth, strengthened in body and mind by hardships and 
dangers endured and overcome, with imaginations quickened 
by the thought that a continent was theirs. 

Whilst there were instances among them of men of gentle 
birth and comparative fortune, yet all stood upon terms of 
perfect equality, and opportunity for all was practically the 
same. Any substantial distinction between the greatest and 
the humblest man, under such circumstances, could only be 
one created by individual prowess or worth. 

There is perhaps in all the world no fairer land, no territory 
combining more natural advantages, and none more favorable 

261 



262 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

to the development of a virile race, than that vast area which 
gradually falls away from the western side of the Allegheny 
Mountains. 

It is a curious fact that Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson 
Davis were born in the same State, that their parents were 
almost neighbors, and equally curious that in after life, in a 
great civil war, they should have been leaders on opposite 
sides. They began under the same environment, and yet how 
widely separated were they in their subsequent lives and 
fortunes ! 

In the Two-Ocean Pass, in the Yellowstone Park, is found 
a level spot hemmed in by surrounding hills, into which flows 
a stream which there divides, one part flowing into the Pacific 
and the other into the Atlantic; and this stream is typical 
of the careers of the two men. Davis in early manhood found 
himself living in a community in which slavery was a recog- 
nized institution, and himself became a slave-holder, as were 
his neighbors and friends; whilst Lincoln found himself in a 
free-soil State, where slavery was regarded as a crime. 

From the foundation of the federal government, the right 
of a State to withdraw from the federal compact was more 
or less discussed. It is not too much to say that the founders 
purposely pretermitted any explicit declaration on the subject, 
and thereafter it was regarded as an open question, as to 
which intelligent and patriotic men might and did differ. 
This difference was for many years not sectional, but grad- 
ually became so after slavery became distinctly a Southern 
institution, and the agitation in favor of its limitation or 
abolition became a burning issue. 

Yet it would be unfair to say that there was a complete 
unanimity of sentiment upon this subject on either side of 
Mason and Dixon's line. In the border States of the South 
especially, the majority of the people were opposed to the 
dogma of secession, as was demonstrated by the overwhelming 
majority against the Ordinances of Secession submitted to 
the people in Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky, and Ten- 
nessee a few months before the outbreak of hostilities. 

Moreover, in these same border States there was a class 



01 ::r. — - 





w 



O 

X 



THE HODGENVILLE COMMEMORATION 263 

sentiment that slavery was morally indefensible, and that 
some means should be adopted looking to gradual emancipa- 
tion. But the practical difficulty confronting those thus think- 
ing was, what would be the status of the slave when freed? 
coupled with the feeling that to make him a free man depend- 
ent upon his own resources would, in a vast majority of in- 
stances, be inhumane and decree his ultimate extinction. 
Even in the North there was a large element of intelligent 
and conservative men who deprecated the agitation against 
slavery and who had not brought themselves to consent to the 
thought of coercion in the event of secession. 

But the continued propaganda preached against slavery, and 
the extreme utterances of partisans on either side, unques- 
tionably by degrees had the effect of drawing a clear line of 
demarcation between the North and the South, both as to 
slavery and secession. 

I do not refer to this ancient history for the purpose of re- 
viving discussions long since dead and buried, but merely to 
call attention to facts which have perhaps been obscured by 
the overwhelming events which followed. It can only be a 
matter of surmise and profitless speculation as to what would 
have happened had the Southern people been left to deal 
with this perplexing question in their own way. Perhaps 
slavery was too strongly rooted to be eradicated save by fire 
and sword, and it may be that in the mysterious movings of 
a Divine Providence the sins of the fathers were visited upon 
the children, and that the South paid the penalty for the 
violation of a great moral law. 

But it ought to be remembered, and I believe is now being 
remembered more and more, that it was not alone the sin of 
the South, although its expiation fell heaviest upon her 
people. 

In reading the public utterances of Lincoln during this 
period of bitter dissension, nothing has impressed me more 
than the singular clearness of his perception that the respon- 
sibility for slavery rested upon all our people and was a 
burden which should be borne by all alike. There was a tem- 
perance of statement, a respect for the opposite point of view. 



264 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

and a moderation in his positions, which, when the excite- 
ment of the time is considered, is most extraordinary and 
must command our admiration, 

"Well would it have been for all our people had they been 
able to approach this burning question with the same con- 
servatism and good sense. I have sometimes thought that this 
was to some extent due to the fact that his birth and early 
youth were in a slave-holding State, and that he understood 
the attitude and feeling of its people to a degree not possible 
for one born and reared in a community where slavery had 
long been unknown. 

He sincerely believed in an indissoluble Union. He sin- 
cerely believed that slavery was a curse and a great moral 
wrong; and in believing thus he was right. He was opposed 
not only to its extension, but believed the gradual emancipa- 
tion was a possibility worth striving for ; and yet he respected 
the Constitution and did not believe in the right to extinguish 
slavery by force. 

In all the speeches he made there can be found no word of 
ill will or malice toward the Southern people, and in reading 
his utterances no Southern man finds himself entertaining 
the slightest sentiment of resentment toward him, or aught 
save admiration for his sincerity, friendliness and broad hu- 
manity. 

His First Inaugural Address, delivered at a time when 
passion was at its height and civil war was imminent, is 
pathetic in its appeals for peace and union. His great heart 
seemed rent in twain, when he finished by saying : 

"I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must 
not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break 
our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from 
every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearth- 
stone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union 
when again touched, a3 surely they will be, by the better angels of 
our nature." 

Alas, that the still, small voice of moderation and reason 
was drowned in the angry cries of determined men mar- 
shalling for a conflict, the magnitude of which few, if any, 







fupiinylil. Fnniri.-i l>. Tinulii (-.■in piui ii. S:i ■ York 

Birth]ilace of Abraiiani Lincoln lu-ar llodiicnvillc, Kentucky 
(Showing cabin before it- reeonst ruction) 




uyf^ 



r.j^. 






C o C--<'^ — I 



5^- 



J^ /\jC^ <T^^ ^'^'L^ /la-cx^X-.^^^_,--^^-t^-- 



^ 



3 r"^ / 9 ^f 



THE HODGENVILLE COMMEMORATION 265 

appreciated, and the consequences of which few, if any, fore- 
saw. And yet there were among the combatants tens of thou- 
sands of men who felt the sweet reasonableness of his dis- 
passionate statements, whose hearts were touched by his pa- 
thetic cry for peace, and yet who, caught up in the rising 
excitement of the time, aligned themselves under the stress 
of circumstances on the one side or the other; tens of thou- 
sands of men on both sides deploring war, yet when war 
seemed inevitable, ranging themselves with their neighbors. 

It seemed the very irony of fate that so gentle a spirit, so 
sympathetic and kindly a nature, should be forced by the 
stern logic of events over which he had no control and for 
which he was in no way responsible, to assume the role of 
Commander-in-chief in a sanguinary civil war between men 
of the same blood and the same traditions. 

The years of war and destruction during which he was 
President, whilst they plowed deep lines of care and grief 
upon his rugged face and wrung his gentle heart, provoked 
no expressions of bitterness from his lips. His many acts 
of personal kindness to Southern prisoners and Southern sym- 
pathizers demonstrated how free he was from the spirit of 
malice or vengeance. 

As, in the progress of time, it became evident the Union 
arms would triumph, he evinced no feeling of exultation or 
sense of personal triumph, but only an anxious desire to 
restore the Southern States to their former place in the Union, 
and to heal the wounds of civil strife. He was opposed to 
extreme measures against the Southern people, and was pre- 
pared to stand between them and the radicals of his party 
who clamored for exemplary reprisals upon a conquered peo- 
ple whom the fortunes of war had delivered into their hands. 

That he would have succeeded in carrying with him the 
great majority of the people of the North in his beneficent 
purposes does not, to my mind, admit of doubt; and that 
there would have followed speedily a union of hearts is 
equally certain. It was indeed cruel that at the moment 
when he had reached the point for which he had striven, 
he should have died at the hands of a hair-brained actor 



266 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

who was in no way identified with the South or her people. 
Still more cruel was fate to the Southern people. They shud- 
dered both at the dastardly act of his assassination and at 
the disastrous consequences to themselves as well, which they 
knew would follow. 

The dies irm of reconstruction was the inevitable result, 
and reconstruction did more to postpone reconciliation than 
did war itself. It was direful in its results to both sections, 
and to the negroes in greater measure, if possible, than to the 
whites. 

But time has brought healing on its wings. A new gen- 
eration of men has been born since Lincoln died. The ani- 
mosities of the old days are ended. As we look back across 
the dead years we see his homely figure standing out clear 
and large. He is not awesome or repellent. There is an 
expression of pathos, touched with humor, upon his face, 
which draws us strongly, and there is sunshine all about him. 
He seems to speak, and we again hear him say, "We are not 
enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though pas- 
sion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affec- 
tion." 

And thus hearing, the men of the South can not only look 
back upon a lost cause without bitterness, but recognize it 
was best that it did fail. And they can and do, without 
bitterness and in all sincerity, join with all the people of this 
nation, and all the people of all nations, in paying tribute 
to Abraham Lincoln — the liberator, the pacificator, the great 
American. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN, LEADER AND MASTER OP 

MEN 

GEN. JAMES GRANT WILSON 

WITH pride and unfeigned pleasure, I appear in this 
place and in this presence, as the representative of 
the survivors of almost three millions of Lincoln soldiers and 
sailors, who served in the army and navy of the United States 
during what is officially designated as the War of the Rebellion. 
Of the two million seven hundred and seventy-eight thousand 
three hundred and four men who, on land and sea, fought 
for four fateful years that this nation should not perish from 
the earth, less than one-fourth are now living. In a few 
decades the last survivor who followed the dear old flag on 
the fields of Shiloh, Gettysburg, Chattanooga, and Mobile 
Bay, will have joined our great President in honor of whose 
gracious memory we are here assembled on this hallowed 
spot of his birth. 

It is among the greatest mysteries of modem history that 
the child born in annus mirahilis, 1809, of illiterate and im- 
poverished parents, in this unpromising place, and without 
any advantages whatsoever, should through life have been al- 
ways a leader and master of men. For hundreds of years, 
scholars have in vain searched for the sources from which 
Shakespeare drew the inspiration that has placed him first 
among the sons of men. Lincoln biographers have been 
equally baffled in similar attempts to discover from whence 
came the truly wonderful power to control and lead all sorts 
and conditions of men, that was certainly possessed by the 
son of "poor whites" of Kentucky who occupied yonder rude 
log cabin. 

As a youth, Abraham Lincoln's alertness, skill, and strength, 
easily made him a recognized leader among his rough com- 

267 



268 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

panions in their amusements and contests, including wrestling. 
When a company was raised in his County for the Black 
Hawk War, Lincoln, then but twenty-three years of age, was 
unanimously elected by his seniors their Captain, which gave 
him, he asserted, greater happiness than the presidency. At 
the Illinois bar he was early recognized by his integrity and 
ready wit, as the superior of his duller associates. As a 
political debater, Lincoln defeated one of the ablest speakers 
of the United States Senate, and but a brief period passed 
as President before the most gifted statesmen of his Cabinet 
unhesitatingly recognized him as their master. Grant praised 
Lincoln as being in military matters superior to many of his 
prominent generals, and your speaker heard Sherman say that 
the President was among the ablest strategists of the War. 
The beau sahreur Sheridan shared the opinion of his two 
seniors. 

It was my peculiar privilege to hear several of the most 
famous speeches delivered during and before the Civil War 
by the great American, who stands second only to Washing- 
ton. Abraham Lincoln was not only one of the wisest of 
men, but the English-speaking world is now aware that he 
was also among its very greatest orators. This fact was not 
appreciated during his life. The flowers of rhetoric are con- 
spicuous by their absence from his speeches, but it may be 
doubted if Demosthenes, Burke, or Webster, could have found 
equally fit words to express the broad philosophy and the 
exquisite pathos of the Gettysburg Address of November, 
1863. 

Lincoln's Second Inaugural is among the most famous 
spoken, or written, utterances in the English language. Por- 
tions of it have been compared to the lofty lines of the ancient 
Hebrew prophets, and as being "Sublime as Milton's im- 
memorial theme." As your speaker was seated within a 
few yards of the President when he delivered this immortal 
address, possibly he may be permitted to repeat to you, as 
nearly as he can, the concluding paragraph, in Mr. Lincoln's 
manner : 




• ■I'ljri.jh:, vjn:,, I ,.,i,rw / ,1 I ...i, i;i:„.,l . .\, ir y,,rk 

Arrival of President Roosevelt 




tiJliiiriglif. J^i):i, fittlri'wn,,,! .\ . .\fw y,,rk 

Catheriiit;; alioiit the Lincoln ("abin 



The IloixiExviLLE ('om.mkmokati 



fATION 



.'J*7l- 



L xfV 











c > 






THE HODGENVILLE COMMEMORATION, 269 

"Fondly do we hope — fervently do -we pray — that this mighty scourge 
of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue 
until all the wealth piled by the bondman's two hundred and fifty 
years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood 
drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, 
as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, that 
'the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.' With 
malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, 
as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work 
that we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who 
shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan — to do 
all which may achieve arid cherish a just and lasting peace among 
ourselves, and with all nations." 

I well remember as a youth, the nation's grief over the 
death of Kentucky 's distinguished son, Henry Clay ; the wide- 
spread mourning occasioned by the departure of New Eng- 
land's majestic Webster, and the sorrow caused by the pass- 
ing away of famous Farragut, and the illustrious triumvirate, 
Grant, Sherman, and Sheridan ; but never except in the death 
of Lincoln, did the country witness such sorrow among the 
plain people and the race that he had liberated, and also such 
numbers of sailors and soldiers shedding tears for the great 
Commander whom they never saw. Children were seen cry- 
ing in our streets. Never before, it has been truthfully said 
by Lowell, was funeral panegyric so eloquent as the silent 
look of sympathy which strangers exchanged when they met 
on that day. Their common manhood had lost a kinsman. 
Grant said to your speaker that the day of Lincoln's death 
was the saddest of his life. The great War President's was 
a life that made a vast difference for all Americans; all are 
better off than if he had not lived ; and this betterment is for 
always, it did not die with him — that is the true estimate of 
a great life. 

President Roosevelt, who is on this platform, said of his 
three most illustrious predecessors: 

"Washington fought in the earlier struggle, and it was his good for- 
tune to win the highest renown alike as a soldier and statesman. In 
the second and even greater struggle, the deeds of Lincoln the states- 
man, were made good by those of Grant the soldier, and later Grant 



270 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

himself took up the work that dropped from Lincoln's tired hands 
when the assassin's bullet went home, and the sad, patient, kindly 
eyes were closed forever." 

What would have been the history of our country without 
these three mighty men? It certainly may be questioned 
if we could have achieved independence without Washington, 
and it is equally open to doubt if the Republic could have 
maintained its integrity without Lincoln and Grant. Na- 
tional unity is no longer a theory, but a condition, and we 
are now united in fact, as well as name. In the words of 
the greatest of poets, 

"Those opposed eyes 
Which, like the meteors of a troubled heaven. 
All of one nature, of one substance bred, 
Did lately meet ia the intestine shock, 
Shall now, in mutual well-beseeming ranks 
March all one way." 

It is perhaps the greatest glory of the triumvirate of un- 
crowned American kings, that they were alike spotless in 
all the varied relations of private life. Their countrymen 
will continue to cherish their memory far on in summers that 
we shall not see, and upon the adamant of their fame, the 
stream of Time will beat without injury. The names of 
Washington, the founder, Lincoln, the liberator, and Grant, 
the saviour of our country, are enrolled in the Capitol, and 
they belong to the endless and everlasting ages. 



THE LINCOLN MEMORIAL 

HON. JOSEPH W. FOLK 

THE people of every great nation have in all times honored 
their heroes with memorials. In studying the history 
of other peoples we, in a large measure, judge them by these 
tokens of affection for the illustrious men that led them in 
some mighty crisis. This nation has had many men whose 
deeds have emblazoned the pages of history, but no name is 
now dearer in the hearts of the people than that of Abraham 
Lincoln. Washington fought to give us this nation, guar- 
anteeing to the citizen, rights never obtained nor exercised 
by any other people; Lincoln struggled to keep it as a gov- 
ernment "of the people, for the people, and by the people." 
tlefferson taught the simple truths necessary for the happi- 
ness of a democratic people ; Lincoln applied these truths 
to the troubles of his time and steered the Ship of State into 
a peaceful harbor. Jackson thundered against and over- 
came the evils of his day; Lincoln, with a heart ready for 
any fate, breathed a new force into the doctrines of Jack- 
son. "We preserve Mount Vernon in memory of Washing- 
ton, Monticello is still the Mecca for the followers of Jeffer- 
son. The Hermitage is kept as when Old Hickory lived 
and worked and wrought. Save for an occasional monu- 
ment there is no suitable memorial of Lincoln, whose fame 
grows brighter as the years go by. 

Here on this farm, one hundred years ago to-day, was 
born the strongest, strangest, gentlest character the Republic 
has ever known. His work was destined to have a more far- 
reaching influence than any that went before him. Until 
recently, this spot, which should be hallowed by every Amer- 
ican, was unnoticed and abandoned. Inspired by the idea 
that a due regard for the apostle of human liberty who 

271 



272 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

sprang from, this soil demanded the preservation of his 
birthplace, a few patriotic men organized the Lincoln Farm 
Association to purchase this property and to erect upon it a 
memorial to that simple but sublime life that here came into 
the world. This Association is purely patriotic in its pur- 
poses and the movement has met with a ready response from 
every section of the nation. The Governors of nearly all the 
States have appointed commissioners to cooperate in this 
work. The South has responded as generously as the North. 
In revering the name of Lincoln, there is now no North nor 
South nor East nor West. There is but one heart in all, 
and that the heart of patriotic America. So the memorial 
to be erected here by South as well as North will not only 
be in memory of Lincoln, but it will be a testimony that 
the fires of hatred, kindled by the fierce Civil conflict of 
nearly half a century ago, are dead, and from the ashes has 
arisen the red rose of patriotism to a common country and 
loyalty to a common flag. It will be a monument in the 
forward progress of a nation dedicated to the liberty and 
happiness of mankind. 

It is appropriate that these dedicatory exercises, partici- 
pated in by representatives of every part of the nation, 
should be held upon the centenary of Lincoln's birth. We 
have not come so much to dedicate this ground, but to set 
it apart as a gift to the American people as a lasting 
memorial to the Matchless American. The man born here 
has already consecrated this place. It is for us to be here 
dedicated to the great task before us, that this nation shall 
not have been preserved merely to fall before the enemies 
of peace, but that it shall be made free from the things that 
dishonor and oppress. The inspiration of high citizenship 
must ever emanate from this spot. 



THE NEW YOEK COMMEMOEATION 



i8 



THE NEW YORK COMMEMORATION 

NEW YORK, the metropolis of the nation, realized its 
opportunity, and that much was expected of it, and 
lived up to that expectation in its commemoration of the day. 
The New York Commemoration was directed by the Lincoln 
Centenary Committee of the City of New York, appointed 
by the Honorable George B. McClellan, Mayor of the city ; of 
which committee the Hon. Joseph H. Choate, former Ambas- 
sador to the Court of St. James, was made Chairman. The 
active charge of the celebration was in the hands of an Execu- 
tive Committee of which Mr. Hugh Hastings was Chairman, 
and Mr. Franklin Chase Hoyt, Secretary. 

At eight o'clock on the morning of the Centenary day, a 
national salute was fired from all the forts in New York har- 
bor, by the battleships in port, by the three National Guard 
field batteries, and by the vessels of the New York Naval 
Militia. In the forenoon, exercises were held in five hundred 
and sixty-one public schools in Greater New York, with the 
reading of the Gettysburg Address at noon precisely; while, 
during the day, exercises were held in each of the forty-six 
district schools of greater New York, at which prominent 
speakers delivered addresses on Lincoln. In the afternoon, a 
great central meeting gathered at Cooper Union, that famous 
hall where, in 1860, Lincoln delivered an address which made 
the people of the East realize that he had possibilities for the 
presidency. His audience on that occasion had been a dis- 
tinguished one, and testified to his growing national impor- 
tance at that time. It included William Cullen Bryant 
Horace Greeley, David Dudley Field, and, among the younger 
men present, Joseph H. Choate and Lyman T. Abbott. 

On the occasion of the Centenary held in the same hall, the 
Hon. Joseph H. Choate acted as Chairman ; and Lyman T. 
Abbott, editor of "The Outlook," gave the principal address. 

275 



276 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

In the evening, exercises were held simultaneously in Car- 
negie Hall, in the College of the City of New York, and in 
the New York State National Guard Armories of the Sev- 
enth, Eighth, Ninth, Twelfth, Thirteenth, Fourteenth, Twenty- 
second, Twenty-third, Forty-seventh, Sixty-ninth, and Sev- 
enty-first Kegiments, the Second Battery Field Artillery, and 
the Seventeenth Separate Company. The exercises at the 
Seventy-first Regiment Armoiy were conducted by the Grand 
Army of the Republic of the City of New York, the Hon. 
Chauncey M. Depew delivering the address. The exercises 
at the Seventeenth Separate Company Armory were also con- 
ducted by the Grand Army, and the address was delivered by 
the Hon. H. Stewart McKnight of Flushing, New York. At 
the American Museum of Natural History, a meeting was 
held at which Dr. John H. Finley, President of the College 
of the City of New York, presided ; and Mr. William Webster 
Ellsworth, of "The Century Magazine," delivered an illus- 
trated lecture — "Abraham Lincoln; Boy and Man"; while 
Booker T. Washington was the orator at a banquet given by 
the Republican Club at the Waldorf-Astoria. 

Lithographic copies of the Gettysburg Address had been 
sent to eighty-five theatres in Greater New York, with the 
request that the address be read at both the afternoon and 
evening performances, and at a majority of the theatres this 
was done, some of them having in addition a special musical 
programme. 

The Committee issued two hundred thousand pamphlets, 
finely illustrated, and full of interesting and valuable mate- 
rial concerning the life of Lincoln, which were distributed 
among the pupils in the public and private schools of the 
city. These were read throughout the city and kept as a re- 
membrance of the Centenary. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN AT COOPER INSTITUTE 

HON. JOSEPH HODGES CHOATE 

JUST forty-nine years ago, in this very month of February, 
on this very spot, before just such an audience as this, 
which filled this historic hall to overflowing, I first saw Abra- 
ham Lincoln, and heard him deliver that thrilling address 
which led to his nomination at Chicago three months after- 
wards and to his triumphant election in November. The im- 
pression of that scene and of that speech can never be effaced 
from my memory. 

After his great success in the West, which had excited 
the keenest expectation, he came to New York to make a 
political address — as he had supposed at Plymouth Church 
in Brooklyn, and it was only when he left his hotel that he 
found he was coming to Cooper Institute. He appeared in 
every sense of the word like one of the plain people, among 
whom he always loved to be counted. 

At first sight there was nothing impressive or imposing 
about him. Nothing but his great stature singled him out 
from the crowd. His clothes hung awkwardly on his gaimt 
and giant frame. His face was of a dark pallor, without a 
tinge of color. His seamed and rugged features bore the 
furrows of hardship and struggle. His deep-set eyes looked 
sad and anxious. His countenance in repose gave little evi- 
dence of that brain-power which had raised him from the 
lowest to the highest station among his countrymen. As he 
spoke to me before the meeting opened, he seemed ill at ease, 
with that sort of apprehension that a young man might feel 
before facing a new and strange audience whose critical dis- 
position he dreaded. Here were assembled all the noted men 
of his party — all the learned and cultured men of the city, 
editors, clergymen, statesmen, lawyers, merchants, critics. 

277 



278 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

They were all most curious to hear him. His fame as a power- 
ful speaker had come out of the West. 

When Mr. Bryant presented him on this platform, a vast 
sea of eager, upturned faces greeted him, full of intense 
curiosity to see what this rude son of the people was like. 
He was equal to the occasion. When he spoke he was trans- 
figured before us. His eye kindled, his voice rang, his face 
shone and seemed to light up the whole assembly as by an 
electric flash. For an hour and more he held his audience 
in the hollow of his hand. His style of speech and manner 
of delivery were severely simple. The grand simplicities of 
the Bible, with which he was so familiar, were distinctly his. 
With no attempt at ornament or rhetoric, without pretence or 
parade, he spoke straight to the point. It was marvellous to 
see how this untutored man, by mere self-discipline and the 
chastening of his own spirit, had outgrown all meretricious 
arts and had found his own way to the grandeur and the 
strength of absolute simplicity. 

He spoke upon the theme which he had mastered so thor- 
oughly. He demonstrated with irresistible force, the power 
and the duty of the Federal Government to exclude slavery 
from the Territories. In the kindliest spirit he protested 
against the threat of the Southern States to destroy the Union 
if a Republican President were elected. He closed with an 
appeal to his audience, spoken with all the fire of his aroused 
and inspired conscience, with a full outpouring of his love 
of justice and liberty, to maintain their political purpose on 
that lofty issue of right and wrong which alone could justify 
it, and not to be intimidated from their high resolve and 
sacred duty, by any threats of destruction to the government 
or of ruin to themselves. He concluded with that telling sen- 
tence which drove the whole argument home to all our hearts, 
"Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith 
let us to the end dare to do our duty as we understand it." 

That night the great hall, and the next day the whole city, 
rang with delighted applause and congratulation, and he who 
had come as a stranger, departed with the laurels of a great 
triumph. 



THE NEW YORK COMMEMORATION 279 

Alas! in five years from that exulting night we saw him 
again for the last time in this city, borne in his coffin through 
the draped streets. With tears and lamentations a heart- 
broken people accompanied him from Washington, the scene 
of his martyrdom, to his last resting place in the young city 
of the West, where he had worked his way to fame. 

The great events and achievements of those five years, 
seen through the perspective of the forty that have since 
elapsed, have fixed his place in history forever. It is the 
supreme felicity of the American people, in the short period 
of their existence as a nation, to have furnished to the world 
the two greatest benefactors, not of their own time only, but 
of all modern history. Washington created the nation and 
is known the world over as the Father of his Country. 
Lincoln came to be its saviour and redeemer — to save it 
from self-destruction, and to redeem it from the cancer of 
slavery which has been gnawing upon its vitals from the 
beginning. If it had been put to the vote of the forty-four 
nations assembled at the Hague for the first time in the 
world's history, representing the whole of civilization. Chris- 
tian and Pagan, to name the two men who in modern times 
had done the most to promote liberty, justice, civilization, 
and peace, I am sure that with one voice they would have 
acclaimed these two greatest of Americans. Let their names 
stand together for all time to come. 



LINCOLN AS A LABOR LEADER 

REV. LYMAN ABBOTT 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN won his reputation and achieved 
his service for the nation by the solution of the labor 
problem of his time — slavery. How can we apply the prin- 
ciples he inculcated and the spirit he exemplified in solving 
the labor problem of our time ? This is the theme to which I 
ask your attention this afternoon. For it would be useless 
for me to attempt to repeat the story of his life, or essay 
an analysis of his character. This has been so eloquently 
done by the Chairman of this meeting in his address before 
the Edinburgh Philosophical Institution in 1900, and by 
Carl Schurz in his well-known essay, that the repetition of 
their service would be needless if it were possible; and for 
me would be impossible if it were needed. I might as well 
attempt to reconstruct a Saint-Gaudens statue of Lincoln 
with my clumsy hand, as with my faltering tongue to re-sing 
the song or re-tell the story so often sung and so often told. 
Instead, I shall venture to repeat, from the well-known Ode 
of Lowell, his portrait of the Great Emancipator, and then 
pass on to my chosen field: 

"Nature, they say, doth dote. 

And cannot make a man 

Save on some worn-out plan. 

Repeating us by rote: 
For him her Old-World molds aside she threw, 
And, choosing sweet clay from the breast 

Of the unexhausted West, 
With stuff untainted shaped a hero new, 
Wise, steadfast in the strength of God, and true. 

How beautiful to see 
Once more a shepherd of mankind indeed, 
Who loved his charge, but never loved to lead; 
280 



THE NEW YORK COMMEMORATION 281 

One whose meek flock the people joyed to be, 
Not lured by any cheat of birth, 
But by his clear grained human worth, 
And brave old wisdom of sincerity! 

. , . standing like a tower, 
Our children shall behold his fame, 
The kindly-earnest, brave, foreseeing man. 
Sagacious, patient, drea'ding praise, not blame. 
New birth of our new soil, the first American." 

Nearly half a century ago, a young man just entering on 
my professional career, I came to Cooper Institute to hear 
the Western orator whose debate with Douglas had given him 
a national reputation. Some of his friends had broached to 
him the subject of a nomination to the presidency. "What," 
he replied, "is the use of talking of me when we have such 
men as Seward and Chase, and everybody knows them, and 
scarcely anybody outside of Illinois knows me? Besides, as 
a matter of justice is it not due to them?" His friends, 
more sanguine than he was about himself, had resolved that 
he should be known, and had arranged for some Eastern 
speeches by him. This Cooper Union speech was the first 
given in this Eastern campaign. My recollection of the scene 
is little more than a memory of a memory. The long hall 
with the platform at the end, not at the side as now; the 
great, expectant, but not enthusiastic crowd; the tall un- 
gainly figure, the melancholy face, the clear carrying voice, 
the few awkward gestures. I had been accustomed to the 
dramatic and impassioned oratory of Henry Ward Beecher. 
I was an admirer, not of the principles, but of the perfect 
literary finish of Wendell Phillips' rapier-like conversations 
with his audiences. I listened to a speech that night as pas- 
sionless, but also as convincing, as a demonstration in Euclid's 
Geometry, as clear and cogent, but also as absolutely without 
oratorical ornament of any description. So much, with some 
effort, I recall. But no effort would enable me ever to for- 
get the new impulse which that great personality imparted 
to my youthful imagination. From that moment I, who 
before that time had been a Seward Republican, became an 
enthusiastic Lincoln Republican, and have stayed converted 



282 (ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

ever since. Subsequent study of his life and writings has 
enabled me to analyze the then unanalyzed impression which 
he produced on the young men of his generation. He was 
an embodied challenge to the conscience of the nation. He 
takes a place in American history which belongs to Amos in 
the history of the Hebrew people; like Amos, a son of the 
people; like Amos, with a plumb-line of righteousness by 
which he measured the institutions of his country ; like Amos, 
bringing every political question to the test. What is right? 
and by that test insisting that all political questions should 
be determined. 

Vague stories are told, some historical, some legendary, to 
illustrate Abraham Lincoln's faith offered to a God efficient 
in the affairs of this world. The first expression of such 
faith that I can find from Lincoln himself is in his Address 
to his fellow-citizens of Springfield as he starts on his east- 
ward journey to his first inauguration : 

"I now leave, not knowing when or whether ever I may return, with 
a task hefore me greater than that which rested upon Washington. 
Without the assistance of that Divine Being who ever attended him, I 
cannot succeed. With that assistance, I cannot fail. Trusting in Him 
who can go with me, and remain with you, and be everywhere for good, 
let us confidently hope that all will yet be well. To His care com- 
mending you, as I hope in your prayers you will commend me, I bid 
you an affectionate farewell." 

From this simple faith in the God who watches over na- 
tions as over individuals he never departed. Subsequent 
events only served to deepen and strengthen it. But in his 
earlier life, before burdens too heavy for him to bear alone 
had driven him to look for help to the Helper of men, Lin- 
coln was an agnostic. He wrote in his youth an essay against 
Christianity, which, fortunately for his reputation, a wise 
friend threw into the fire. But if that is the only indication 
of an anti-Christian faith, there is no indication in his youth 
of any religious faith, Christian or other. Says Mr. Hem- 
don, "Mr. Lincoln had no faith. In order to believe, he must 
see and feel and thrust his hand into the place. He must 
taste, smell, or handle before he had faith or even belief." 



THE NEW YORK COMMEMORATION 283 

Mr. Herndon's estimate is confirmed by that of Lincoln's 
wife. "Mr. Lincoln," she says, "had no faith and no hope 
in the usual acceptation of those words. He never joined a 
church; but still, as I believe, he was a religious man by 
nature. . . . He first seemed to think about the subject 
when our Willie died, and then more than ever by the time 
he went to Gettysburg; but it was a kind of poetry in his 
nature, and he was never a technical Christian." 

What profounder religious faith than was expressed in 
Lincoln's Springfield Speech, Mrs. Lincoln looked for, I do 
not know; and what is meant by a "technical Christian" 
I am not quite sure. But if Lincoln had in the early part 
of his life no faith and no hope, it is certain that from his 
earliest years he had a conscience. Whether it was inherited 
from his mother, or acquired by education, or received by a 
susceptible soul from that mysterious Being in whom we have 
our life, it certainly dominated his whole nature and con- 
trolled his whole conduct. From his youth up he was known 
among his rough companions as "Honest Abe." They were 
accustomed to refer to him their controversies and accept 
his arbitrament, generally without question. If ever there 
is a time in the life of man when his conscience takes the 
second place and his passion comes to the front, it is when 
he is in love. I think Abraham Lincoln's letter to Mary 
Owens in 1837 a unique specimen in love literature, of love- 
making by conscience : 

"I want in all cases to do right, and most particularly so in all cases 
with women. I want at this particular time, more than anything else, 
to do right with you; and if I knew it would be doing right, as I 
rather suspect it would be, to let you alone, I would do it. And for 
the purpose of making the matter as plain as possible, I now say that 
you can now drop the subject, dismiss your thoughts (if you ever had 
any) from me forever, and leave this letter unanswered, without call- 
ing forth one accusing murmur from me. . . . Nothing would 
make me more miserable than to believe you miserable — nothing more 
happy than to know you were so." 

He was a man of eager professional ambitions; but his 
notes prepared for a law lecture in 1850, which was, so far 



284 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

as I know, never delivered, show that in his innermost thought 
his professional ambitions were subordinated to his conscience. 
He says : 

V "There is a vague popular belief that lawyers are necessarily dis- 
honest. I say vague, because when we consider to what extent 
confidence and honors are reposed in and conferred upon lawyers by 
the people, it appears improbable that their impression of dishon- 
esty is very distinct and vivid. Yet the impression is common, al- 
most universal. Let no young man choosing the law for a calling for 
a moment yield to the popular belief — resolve to be honest at all 
events; and if in your own judgment you cannot be an honest lawyer, 
resolve to be honest without being a lawyer. Choose some other occu- 
pation rather than one in the choosing of which you do, in advance, 
consent to be a knave." 

Lincoln was a man of strong political ambitions ; but from 
the outset of his life his political ambitions were subordinated 
to his desire for public righteousness. In 1836 he was run- 
ning for the first time for office. His defeat then would have 
probably been a permanent end to his political hopes. A 
Mr. Robert Allen had said that he was in possession of facts 
which, if known to the public, would destroy Lincoln's pros- 
pects, but through favor to Lincoln he would not divulge 
those facts. Lincoln writes him: 

"No one has needed favors more than I, and, generally, few have 
been less unwilling to accept them; but in this case favor to me would 
be injustice to the public, and therefore I must beg your pardon for 
declining it. . . . the candid statement of facts on your part, how- 
ever low it may sink me, shall never break the tie of personal friend- 
ship between us." 

It would be difficult to find a more striking illustration of 
the dominating power of conscience than in this declaration, 
that an act just to the public and destructive to the writer's 
ambitions would not sunder the ties of friendship between 
the writer and the man who had destroyed his political hopes. 

A year later, at twenty-eight years of age, Lincoln delivers 
a Lyceum address in Springfield. He warns the young men 
to whom he speaks of impending national peril. He fears no 
attack of foreign foe. "As a nation of freemen," he says, 
"we must live through all time, or die by suicide." The 



THE NEW YORK COMMEMORATION 285 

domestic peril which he fears is not intemperance, nor gam- 
bling, nor even slavery, but a lack of conscience, a disregard 
of justice, "the growing disposition to substitute the wild 
and furious passions in lieu of the sober judgments of courts, 
and the worse than savage mobs for the executive ministers 
of justice." He is nominated by the Republicans of Illinois 
against Stephen A. Douglas to be United States Senator. 
He prepares with care his speech of acceptance and reads 
it to his friends. It opens with these pregnant sentences, 
since become famous in the political history of America : 

" 'A house divided against itself cannot stand.' I believe this Gov- 
ernment cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not 
expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — 
but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one 
thing, or all the other." 

His cautious friends protest. One calls it a fool utterance. 
Another says it is ahead of the times. A third argues that 
it would drive away a good many voters fresh from the Dem- 
ocratic ranks. Even his Abolition friend, Herndon, doubts 
its wisdom. "This thing," replies Lincoln, "has been re- 
tarded long enough. The time has come when these sentences 
should be heard, and if it is decreed that I should go down 
because of this speech, then let me go down linked to the 
truth. Let me die in the advocacy of what is just and right." 
In his subsequent debate with Douglas he nails this flag to 
the mast and keeps it flying there : 

"The real issue in this controversy ... is the sentiment on the 
part of one class that looks upon slavery as a wrong, and of another 
class that does not look upon it as a wrong. . . . That is the 
real issue. That is the issue that will continue in this country when 
these poor tongues of Judge Douglas and myself shall be silent. It 
is the eternal struggle between these two principles — right and wrong 
— throughout the world. They are the two principles which have stood 
face to face from the beginning of time; and will ever continue to 
struggle." 

Such was the man who came to New York, and in this hall 
forty-nine years ago issued his challenge to the sleeping con- 
science of the city. He was in the commercial metropolis 



286 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

of the nation, the Corinth of America. All its life was cen- 
tered in and dominated by its commercial interests. Its 
great religious societies and its most influential pulpits, with 
a few notable exceptions, were silent respecting the wrong 
of slavery. Cotton was King, and New York was his capital. 
Nowhere more than in New York was compromise popular, 
and uncompromising hostility to slavery abhorrent to popu- 
lar sentiment ; nowhere more than in New York might the 
woe have been pronounced against those that "close their 
eyes that they may not see, their ears that they may not hear, 
and their hearts that they may not feel, lest they should be 
converted." Even the most radical anti-slavery journal in 
the city damned the Western orator with faint praise. With 
a moral courage rarely exceeded, though happily not without 
frequent historic parallels, Abraham Lincoln, in this city 
and to this audience, reissued his challenge to the conscience 
of the nation. 

"If slavery," he said, "is right ... we cannot justly object to its 
nationality — its universality; if it is wrong, they cannot justly insist 
upon its extension — its enlargement. All they ask we could readily 
grant, if we thought slavery right; all we ask they could as readily 
grant, if they thought it wrong. Their thinking it right and our 
thinking it wrong is the precise fact upon which depends the whole 
controversy." 

In that issue, so stated, compromise was impossible. 

The slavery question seems so simple to us now ; but it was 
not simple to the men of that generation. Let us go back 
and attempt to conceive it as it appeared to them. The year 
1620, which saw the Pilgrim Fathers landing on Plymouth 
Rock, saw a vessel of slaves landing on the Virginia coast. 
For nearly two hundred years slavery existed in every State 
in the Union except Massachusetts, and some citizens of 
Massachusetts engaged in the slave trade. Partly from 
moral, partly from economic reasons, it was gradually abol- 
ished in the Northern States. But the invention of the 
cotton-gin created a greatly increased demand for cotton, and 
the greatly increased demand for cotton, created a greatly 
increased demand for negro labor, and this gave slavery 




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THE NEW YORK COMMEMORATION 287 

a new life in the Southern States. It was first regretted, 
then excused, then justified, finally glorified. Other causes 
tended to promote radical differences between North and 
South, but they would easily have been overcome had 
it not been that slavery existed in one section and not in 
another. For a while a line was drawn across the continent, 
and an agreement was reached, that south of that line, slavery 
should never be interfered with, north of that line the ter- 
ritoiy should remain forever free. The abolition of this 
Compromise in 1854 opened Northern territory to slavery 
and threw the whole country into a ferment of passion and 
panic. In the light of subsequent history, arguments do not 
seem even specious now that seemed forceful then. They 
were such as these : Slave labor is necessary to cotton, and 
cotton is necessary to the world. Slaves have been made 
property, and interference with slavery is a violation of 
vested rights. Slavery is recognized by the Constitution ; to 
interfere with slavery is to violate a solemn compact and to 
rend asunder the most sacred document ever written by 
human hands. Slavery is justified by patriarchal example, 
by Old Testament laws, and by Noah's curse of Canaan and 
his descendants; to demand its abolition is to deny the Bible 
and attack the foundations of religion. The continued agita- 
tion of the slave question destroys business prosperity, 
paralyzes industry, threatens the destruction of the Union, 
the last hope of democracy upon the earth ; against such dis- 
astrous consequences the imaginary welfare of three million 
black men is not for an instant to be weighed. Thus eco- 
nomics, the rights of property, the Constitution of the United 
States, the Old Testament laws, the spirit of patriotism, re- 
enforced by the inertia miscalled conservatism, were all 
combined in the endeavor to prohibit agitation of the slavery 
question. Eloquently did Lincoln sum up the condition of 
the negro in a speech delivered in Springfield a year before 
his nomination to the United States Senate : 

"All the powers of the earth seem rapidly combining against him. 
Mammon is after him, ambition follows, philosophy follows, and the 
theology of the day is fast joining the cry. They have him in his 



288 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

prison-house; they have searched his person, and left no prying instru- 
ment with him. One after another they have closed the heavy iron 
doors upon him; and now they have him, as it were, bolted in with 
a lock of a hundred keys, which can never be unlocked without the 
concurrence of every key — the key in the hands of a hundred different 
men, and they scattered to a hundred different and distant places; 
and they stand musing as to what invention, in all the dominions 
of mind and matter, can be produced to make the impossibility of hia 
escape more complete than it is." 

In the confused and vehement conflict of passions and 
opinions which only the pen of a Carlyle would be adequate 
to portray, there emerged two parties, both of which justified 
the abolition of the Missouri Compromise and the opening of 
Northern territory to the incursion of slavery. One of these 
parties in the Presidential election of 1860 was represented 
by Breckinridge, the other by Douglas. The first demanded 
the constitutional right to carry their slaves as property into 
every State in the Union, Robert Toombs, of Georgia, 
boasted that he would call the roll of his slaves at the foot of 
Bunker Hill Monument. The famous Dred Scott decision, 
that a slave was not converted into a free man by being car- 
ried into free territory, gave apparent, if not real support 
to the constitutional argument of the Breckinridge wing. 
The other party did not claim that slavery must go, but only 
that it might go, into Northern territory. As a compromise 
between North and South, Stephen A. Douglas invented the 
doctrine — which his friends called "popular sovereignty" 
and his enemies ''squatter sovereignty" — the doctrine that 
the people of any State might determine whether it should be 
a free or a slave State, when they framed its Constitution. 
To both these doctrines Lincoln brought the plumb-line of 
practical righteousness. His answer to the Dred Scott deci- 
sion was : 

"It is singular that the courts would hold that a man never lost 
his right to his property that had been stolen from him, but that 
he instantly lost the right to himself if he was stolen." 

His answer to popular sovereignty was equally terse and 
equally unanswerable : 



THE NEW YORK COMMEMORATION 289 

"The doctrine of self-government is right — absolutely and eternally 
right. . . . When the white man governs himself, that is self- 
government; but when he governs himself and also governs another 
man, that is more than self-government — that is despotism." 

And his answer to all the defences of slavery, economic, 
philosophic, humanitarian, and religious, was summed up in 
an appeal to consciousness that might have been derived from 
Darwin's "Emotions in Animals and Man," if that book had 
then been written. He says: 

"The ant who has toiled and dragged a crumb to his nest will 
fiercely defend the fruit of his labor against whatever robber assails 
him. So plain is it that the most dumb and stupid slave that ever 
toiled for a master does know that he has been wronged. So plain 
is it that no one, high or low, ever does mistake it, except in a 
plainly selfish way; for, although volume upon volume is written 
to prove slavery a very good thing, we never hear of the man who 
writes to tell the good of it, being a slave himself." 

And yet Lincoln was not an Abolitionist. Not because he 
was less just, but because he was more just ; because he recog- 
nized rights which the Abolitionists did not recognize, and 
insisted upon duties which they ignored. The Abolitionists 
declared that slave-holders, slave-traders, and slave-drivers 
"are a race of monsters unparalleled in their assumption of 
power and their despotic cruelty." Never did Lincoln utter 
a word of bitterness or hate against the slave-owner. "I think 
I have," he said, "no prejudice against the Southern people. 
They are just what we would be in their situation. If slav- 
ery did not now exist among them, they would not introduce 
it. If it did now exist among us, we should not instantly 
give it up." The Abolitionists declared that the existing 
Constitution of the United States "is a covenant with death 
and an agreement with hell." Lincoln believed in that Con- 
stitution, honored the men who framed it, solemnly swore to 
support it, and laid down his life in maintaining that solemn 
oath. The Abolitionists demanded "immediate, unconditional 
emancipation." One of Lincoln's first acts in going to Con- 
gress was to propose a Bill for the gradual emancipation of 
slavery in the District of Columbia, with compensation to 
19 



290 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

the slave-owners; and one of his last acts, before reluctantly 
consenting to issue an Emancipation Proclamation as a war 
measure, was to secure from Congress a pledge of national 
cooperation with the slave-holders of the loyal States, if they 
would consent to gradual emancipation with compensation. 
The Abolitionists proclaimed as a fundamental principle, 
"No union with slave-holders." Lincoln, in the midst of the 
Civil War, wrote to Horace Greeley, . . . *'If I could 
save the Union without freeing any slaves, I would do it; 
. . . and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving 
others alone, I w^ould also do that." Lincoln was not an 
Abolitionist : because he had charity for the slaveholder for 
whom the Abolitionist had no charity; because he honored the 
Constitution which the Abolitionists denounced ; because he 
used every endeavor to persuade the nation to assume its share 
of responsibility for slavery, and its share of the burden in- 
volved in emancipation, from which the Abolitionists endeav- 
ored in vain to escape; and because he endured four as sad 
years as ever have fallen to the lot of any man in order that he 
might save the Union which the Abolitionists wished to 
destroy. And yet to the principle, "No further extension 
of slavery on American soil," he gave himself with uncom- 
promising consecration. For that principle he hazarded his 
own political fortunes, the fortunes of his party, and the life 
of the nation. To all remonstrances urging compromise upon 
him after his election, his answer was the same, "On the Ter- 
ritorial question [that is, the question of extending slavery 
under national auspices] I am inflexible." 

I have said that the slavery question was one phase of the 
labor question. So said Lincoln, nearly half a century ago. 
"The existing rebellion," he wrote to a Committee from the 
Working Men's Association of New York, " . . . is in 
fact a war upon the rights of all working people." To what 
conclusion would his principles and his spirit lead upon the 
Labor Question as it is presented to us in our times? 

We may be sure that he who never denounced the slave- 
holder, who never did anything to intensify the profound ire 
of South against North or North against South, would enter 



THE NEW YORK COMMEMORATION 291 

into no class war, would never denounce the rich to the poor 
or the poor to the rich. He who told the farmers of Wiscon- 
sin that the reason why there were more attempts to flatter 
them than any other class was because they could cast more 
votes, but that to his thinking they were neither better nor 
worse than other people, would never flatter the mechanic 
class to win for himself or his party a labor vote. He who, 
in 1864, held with workingmen that "the strongest bond of 
human sympathy, outside of the family relation, should be one 
uniting all working people, of all nations, and tongues, and 
kindreds," would not condemn labor unions. He who, at the 
same time, said to them, "Let not him who is houseless pull 
down the house of another, but let him work diligently and 
build one for himself," would have condemned all lawless 
acts of violence, whether against the employer of labor or the 
non-union laborer who is employed. He who thanked God 
that we have a system of labor where there can be a strike — 
a point where the workingman may stop working — would not 
deny this right to the workingman of to-day. He who said, 
in 1860, "I don't believe in a law to prevent a man from get- 
ting rich," and who did believe in "allowing the humblest man 
an equal chance to get rich with any one else," would have 
found, not in war upon the wealthy, but in equal opportimity 
for all, the remedy for social and industrial inequalities. He 
who condemned the mudsill theory, the theory that labor and 
education are incompatible and that "a blind horse upon a 
treadmill is a perfect illustration of what a laborer should be, 
all the better for being blind, so that he could not kick under- 
standingly," would be the earnest advocate of child-labor 
laws and industrial education. He who argued that "As the 
Author of man makes every individual with one head and 
one pair of hands, it was probably intended that heads and 
hands should cooperate as friends, and that that particular 
head should direct and control that pair of hands," would 
believe in cooperation between labor and capital, leading on 
to the time when laborers should become capitalists and all 
capitalists should become laborers. He who held, in 1854, 
that "the legitimate object of government is 'to do for the 



292 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

people what needs to be done, but which they cannot, by in- 
dividual effort, do at all, or do so well, for themselves,' " 
would neither believe in the night-watchman theory of gov- 
ernment which allows it to do nothing but police duty, nor in 
the socialistic theory of government which leaves nothing for 
individual effort to do for itself. 

Two solutions of the labor problem present themselves in 
our time for our acceptance. One is capitalism, or the wages 
system : that a few shall always own the tools and implements 
with which industry is carried on — these are capitalists — and 
that the many shall always carry on the industry with these 
tools and implements for wages paid by their owners. This 
makes the mass of men always wage-laborers, dependent upon 
a few. The other is State socialism : that the government 
shall own all the tools and implements of industry, and allot 
to the various members of the community their respective 
industries and compensations. This makes all individuals 
wage-earners employed by an organization, the City, State, 
or Nation, in the control of which it is assumed all will share. 
Neither of these solutions would Lincoln have accepted. 
Neither of these solutions did he accept. No solution would 
he have accepted which made the workingman, whether he 
works with brain or with hand, a perpetual wage-earner, fixed 
in that condition for life, and forever dependent for his live- 
lihood upon any employer, whether private or political. He 
did not believe in a perpetual employment of the many by a 
few capitalists; he would not have believed in a perpetual 
employment of all by one capitalist — the State or the Nation. 
He believed in a fair field and an open door through which 
every workingman may become a capitalist, every wage- 
earner may become his own employer. 

In his first Annual Message, Lincoln stated with great 
clearness his solution of the labor problem. To that state- 
ment he attached such importance that he repeated it two 
years and a half later in his letter to the Working Men's 
Association of New York. The importance he attached to 
this statement of his faith justifies my reading it at some 
length : 



THE NEW YORK COMMEMORATION 293 

"Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the 
fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first 
existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the 
higher consideration. Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of 
protection as any other rights. Nor is it denied that there is, and 
probably always will be, a relation between labor and capital, pro- 
ducing mutual benefits. The error is in assuming that the whole 
labor of the community exists within that relation. . . . There 
is not, of necessity, any such thing as the free hired laborer being fixed 
to that condition for life. Many independent men everywhere in these 
States, a few years back in their lives, were hired laborers. The pru- 
dent penniless beginner in the world labors for wages awhile . . . 
and at length hires another new beginner to help him. This is the 
just and generous and prosperous system which opens the way to all — 
gives hope to all, and consequent energy and progress, and improve- 
ment of condition to all." 

Many years ago I delivered an address to a deaf and dumb 
audience. The congregation fixed their attention upon the 
interpreter at my side. They looked at him. Through him 
they heard me. My ambition this afternoon has been to 
efface myself and bid you listen to the invisible orator who 
stands by my side with his sad face, his resolute conscience, 
his human sympathies, and his simple, sincere English. 
What he would say, if you could hear him, would be, I think, 
what he said in 1860 to the capitalists and workingmen of 
New Haven : 

"I am not ashamed to confess that twenty-five years ago I was a 
hired laborer, mauling rails, at work on a flatboat — just what might 
happen to any poor man's son. I want every man to have the chance — • 
and I believe a black man is entitled to it — in which he can better 
his condition — when he may look forward and hope to be a hired 
laborer this year and the next, work for himself afterward, and finally 
to hire men to work for him. That is the true system. . . . Then 
you can better your condition, and so it may go on and on in one 
ceaseless round so long as man exists on the face of the earth." 

This is Abraham Lincoln's solution of the labor problem. 



ONE OF THE PLAIN PEOPLE 

HON. CHAUNCET M, DEPEW 

IT is eminently fitting that the birthday of Abraham Lin- 
coln should be celebrated by the Grand Army of the 
Republic. It was at his call, as President, that the first 
seventy-five thousand men enlisted to save the Union. After- 
ward, on other appeals, the cry, **We are coming, Father 
Abraham, three hundred thousand more," rang through every 
city, village, and hamlet in the land ; and forth from the 
fields, the workshop, the factory, the store, and the office went 
these followers of Abraham Lincoln to fight for the preserva- 
tion of the Union, In every way in which a great ruler can 
alleviate the horrors of war and care for his soldiers, Abraham 
Lincoln rendered to them, as a body and individually, all 
the service in his power. They were ever in that great heart 
of his, and an appeal on their behalf would cause him to lay 
aside every duty, no matter how great, to encourage, rescue 
or save. 

We read much in these days of the lack of opportunity for 
young men. It is claimed that the difficulty of earning a 
living or of getting ahead increases year by year, but to all 
who despair, all who are discouraged, all who have a spark 
of ambition, the life of Abraham Lincoln is an example and 
inspiration. There is no youth in this audience to-night, and 
very few, if any, in all this land, who are surrounded with 
such discouraging conditions as those which were the lot and 
part of Abraham Lincoln from the time of his birth until 
he had passed his twenty-fifth year. He was born in a log 
cabin of one room with a dirt floor, on a farm so sterile that 
it was impossible for his father to make a living. When he 
was seven years old the family moved upon government land 
in the forests of Indiana, and at that tender age he assisted 

294 



THE NEW YORK COMMEMORATION 295 

his parents in constructing another rude habitation, which 
had neither doors nor windows, and through which swept the 
rains of summer and the snows of winter. He worked either 
with his father in an effort to make a clearing in the woods, 
upon which might be raised food for the family, or else 
tramped miles to work as a farm-hand for distant neighbors, 
giving his wages, which were ever so limited, into the family 
fund. Sickness carried off his mother, a good woman, but 
uneducated, who did the best she could and probably died 
from the privations of frontier life. Then, abandoning their 
farm, the family moved again to Illinois. Here he once more 
did his best to build a rude home for the family, and the rails 
which he split for a fence were thirty years afterward car- 
ried into the Illinois Convention which presented him as a 
candidate for President, and in the campaign after his nom- 
ination took rank with the things which captured the popular 
mind in the "Tippecanoe and Tyler too" campaign of Gen- 
eral Harrison, and the "Mill boy of the Slashes," which kept 
the name of Henry Clay a household word. At twenty-one, 
putting all his earthly belongings into a handkerchief tied 
to a stick, he tramped to the village of Salem to make his own 
way in the world. He became a clerk in a country store, at 
ten dollars a month. He, with other young men, built a flat- 
boat and stocked it with some things on credit and floated 
down to New Orleans. That visit was one of the milestones 
in his career. He wandered one day into the market-place, 
where slaves were being publicly sold. There was a beautiful 
octoroon girl on the block. The auctioneer was calling off 
her physical perfections. A rough crowd of brutal men were 
exchanging, with their bids, lecherous jokes about her. Lin- 
coln, a tall, ungainly, ill-clad flatboat man, shook his fist at 
the exhibition and said, "If I ever get a chance, I will hit 
that thing hard." The remark matured subsequently in the 
Proclamation of Emancipation. 

He and a friend bought a grocery store upon credit. It 
was slimly stocked, and they were cheated in the bargain, in 
giving eight hundred dollars for the goods. His partner took 
to drink and became a confirmed drunkard, while Lincoln 



296 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

neglected customers to read and study such few books as he 
could borrow. The goods disappeared and the firm became 
bankrupt without any assets. Then Lincoln studied survey- 
ing. He managed to secure the necessary instruments and 
a horse and buggy, and travelled the country, fixing boundary 
lines between farmers' lands and staking out streets of bud- 
ding villages and towns. When he had paid for his outfit, 
misfortune again befell him. The notes which he and his 
partner gave for the store had been sold immediately at a 
tremendous discount, and then bought up subsequently by 
a Shyloek money lender for a few dollars. This money lender 
now secured judgment, levied upon and sold Lincoln's horse, 
wagon, surveying instruments, and everything which he pos- 
sessed. The neighbors were so shocked that they refused to 
bid, and a friend bought in the outfit, at a small price, and 
loaned it to Lincoln to pursue his profession. So that, at 
twenty-five, after all these sad experiences on the farm, the 
flatboat, and the grocery, he found himself in debt. It would 
have been easy to have escaped that obligation. He was so 
advised by his friends, but the answer, which was character- 
istic of his life and characteristic of one of the most honest 
of minds, was, "I promised to pay." It was many years 
before he was able to clear off that obligation. 

About this time a young lady of beauty, family, and cul- 
ture, to whom he was engaged, contracted a fatal illness, and 
died in his presence. His friends feared he would lose his 
mind with grief. It was a sorrow which pursued him for 
years, and from which he never entirely recovered. He now, 
burdened with debt and almost crushed with this pathetic 
tragedy, practically started anew at twenty-six to study law. 
In these days a young man, before he can be admitted to the 
bar, must have an education of the common school and high 
school or academy, which means years of study and oppor- 
tunity for study. Before he can be admitted to the great law 
schools he must have received a degree in a college of liberal 
learning, and then before he can be graduated from the law 
school he must spend four years in hard work. Lincoln be- 
came a great lawyer, but think of his equipment when he 



THE NEW YORK COMMEMORATION 297 

began to study ! He had only about four months of schooling 
under five different teachers, scattered over several years, 
and at no period over three weeks at a time. None of these 
teachers was equipped beyond reading, writing, and simple 
arithmetic. During his life on the farm he had borrowed 
every book there was in those frontier neighborhoods. The 
family Bible he read over and over again. A Justice of the 
Peace had the "Eevised Statutes of Indiana," and that he 
read with the same thoroughness. The family moved from 
Indiana to Illinois, where the settlements were closer, and 
when he came to the village of Salem, he succeeded in bor- 
rowing Shakespeare, Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress," ^sop's 
"Fables," Weems' "Life of Washington," and a crude "His- 
tory of the United States." He read while following the 
plow — to the disgust of his employer — on moonlight nights, 
lying upon his back in the fields, while going to and from his 
work, while on the flatboat, while a clerk, and while a mer- 
chant. He had no teacher of style or composition. There 
was little paper in the wilderness, but he wrote compositions 
on the wooden snow shovel with a piece of charcoal, and 
rubbed it off and re-wrote, until he had secured by these 
crude methods and by the teachings of the Bible, Shakespeare, 
and Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress," that wonderful style 
in sinewy English which contributed to our literature two 
of its rarest gems, the Gettysburg Speech, and the Second 
Inaugural Address. 

The following is an illustration of his difficulties in finding 
books for which he was hungry: The rain came through 
the roof of the log cabin and ruined Weems' "Life of Wash- 
ington," which he had borrowed from a distant farmer. 
This is the "Life" now entirely out of print, in which is 
the story of the hatchet and the cherry tree — a story that has 
not found its way into the regular Histories or any other 
"Life of Washington." It is a story, though, which does 
more to keep alive in the schools the memory of the Father 
of his Country, and which has led to more humor, more or 
less good, than any other incident in his life. Lincoln, with 
a sad heart, returned the drenched volume to its owner. 



298 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

who made him work in the fields at twenty-five cents a day 
until the price which it originally cost had been paid up. 

Lincoln possessed one of the most logical of minds and a 
singular faculty of grasping all the facts, and so marshalling 
them as to be irresistible in debate. He had that rarest gift of 
the lawyer — the talent to sift vast accumulations of material, 
testimony, and precedents, until he had hit upon and eluci- 
dated the real point upon which rested the success or failure 
of the case. He impressed these readings upon his mind by 
making speeches to the horse or the oxen he was driving, to 
the woods through which he was walking to his work, and at 
the noonday hour in the fields he would mount a fence and 
spout his reflections to his fellow-workers. 

A lawyer loaned him Blackstone's "Commentaries" in four 
volumes. Every odd moment from hard work of every kind, 
necessary to secure the money for a living, was given to the 
study of this and other elementary works, until he had thor- 
oughly mastered them and the principles of law. He finally 
was admitted to the bar, but in training, culture, and equip- 
ment he differed from most of his associates. Not only that, 
but his ethics of practice were antagonistic to those of all 
with whom he came in contact. A case which he believed 
wrong, he would not take. If, during the course of his in- 
vestigations, he learned that his client had deceived him, he 
would decline to proceed. He cared little for money, and his 
charges were only sufficient for his limited necessities. Much 
of his practice was on behalf of the poor whom he thought 
wronged and from whom he could expect no reward. With- 
out the opportunities of the law school or the law office, 
without the reading of a well-equipped library, he was always 
deficient in ability to cite precedents and decisions upon which 
the bar and the bench so largely depend. But he knew by 
heart the principles of the common law, and, because of his 
years of communion with the plain people, he was more 
familiar with ordinary human nature than any man in his 
Circuit. With the ability to make difficult things plain to 
the humblest understanding, and to clarify the most murky 
atmosphere of conflicting testimony, he added humor and a 













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Facsimile of First Pago of \'iptor Hugo's Letter Accepting Memhersliip 

on the f'oniniittee of the French Democracy 

(Formed to comiiieiiiorate the services of Lincoln to the cause of tlie Republic 
and of liberal ideas) 




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I'';icsimil(' of 1 he Sfvoml I',-m,(' of \'iclor Hugo's l,cIliT 



THE NEW YORK COMMEMORATION 299 

faculty for apt illustration cultivated by his Bible, Bunyan's 
"Pilgrim's Progress," and ^sop's ''Fables," and he pos- 
sessed an exhaustless fund of anecdotes which nobody could 
tell so well or apply so happily as Abraham Lincoln. When 
he left the bar, after twenty-three years of practice, to become 
President of the United States, he stood among the first of 
the legal lights of the State of Illinois. 

But it was in riding the circuit during that quarter of a 
century, that he was preparing unconsciously for the Presi- 
dency. He told me that at the County towns when Court 
was held, the judge, lawyers, litigants, witnesses, and grand 
and petit jurors would sit up all night at the hotel, telling 
stories of things which had happened in the lives of an 
original frontier people, and he said they were better, more 
to the point, and infinitely stronger for illustration and the 
enforcement of argument, than all the stories and anecdotes 
which were ever invented. Human nature is best studied, 
public questions are more keenly discussed, character is better 
exhibited, in the forum of the country grocery or drug store 
than anywhere else. There gather the elders, more or less 
wise, the lawyers looking for acquaintances, popularity and 
clients, and the young men listening and absorbing. Lincoln, 
with his wonderful gift of humor, anecdote, and argument, 
was for years the idol of that forum. It was there he learned 
the lesson, invaluable to him when dealing afterwards with 
mighty problems of state which required for their solution 
the support of the people, how to so state his case and make 
his appeal that it would find a response in the humblest homes 
in every part of the land. 

Lincoln's characteristic as a lawyer was, if possible, to 
get his client to settle, to bring together antagonists, and to 
compose their differences. At that early time lawyers habitu- 
ally encouraged litigation. Lincoln discouraged it, whenever 
possible. He believed in peace in the family and good will 
and good neighborhood in the town. He believed it to be 
a lawyer's duty, and that he was aiding the best interests 
of his client, to procure a settlement without the expense of 
litigation. He told an amusing story in this line. He said 



SOO ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

that a farmer came into his office one day insisting on divorce 
proceedings being commenced at once, Lincoln said, "What 
is the difficulty?" The farmer answered, '*We have got 
along so well that we are now rich enough to abandon the 
log cabin and we have built a frame house. When the ques- 
tion came about painting, I wanted it painted white like our 
neighbors, but my wife preferred brown. Our disputes finally 
became quarrels. She has broken crockery, throwing it at 
my head, and poured scalding tea down my back, and I want 
a divorce." Lincoln said, "My friend, man and wife should 
live together, if possible, for their own sake and for the 
children's, and endure a great deal. Now go back, keep your 
temper, and compromise with your wife. You could not have 
lived together all these years without learning some basis 
upon which you can compromise any difficulty; and don't 
come back for a month." At the end of four weeks the 
farmer returned and said, "Lincoln, you needn't bring that 
suit. My wife and I have compromised." "What is the 
compromise?" "Well," said the farmer, "we are going to 
paint the house brown." 

Years of diligent study, and this habit, continued from 
early youth, of expressing his ideas aloud and making 
speeches alike to trees and to people, made him attractive to 
the local leaders of his party. His speech when nominated 
for the Legislature of Illinois, was a model of brevity. It was 
substantially this: "I am in favor of a protective tariff, a 
national bank, and internal improvements. If you like my 
principles, I should be glad to serve you." With the excep- 
tion of the slavery issue, that speech, made in 1834, seventy- 
five years ago, has been practically the platform of the Repub- 
lican party since its formation until to-day. 

Lincoln was of slow growth. There was nothing precocious 
about him. He matured along fine lines, and each year added 
to his mental stature. He made little impression during his 
four terms in the Legislature, except for diligence and intelli- 
gence. He served one term in Congress. There he displayed 
the prevailing characteristic of his political life. He expressed 
his opinions regardless of consequences. The country was 



THE NEW YORK COMMEMORATION 301 

aflame for the Mexican War. The American people are always 
with the President against a foreign enemy. He knew that 
war had been provoked in order to take territory away from 
Mexico for the extension of slavery. He followed in the lead 
of Tom Corwin and made a vigorous speech denouncing the 
policy and purpose of the war. Corwin 's speech retired him 
permanently from public life, and Lincoln was not again a 
candidate for the House of Representatives. This quality of 
his mind, and moral courage, were happily illustrated in the 
famous joint debates between Douglas and himself. Douglas 
was the most formidable debater, either in the Senate or on 
the platform, in the country. He was superbly prepared, 
equipped with every art of the orator, resourceful beyond 
anyone of his time, and unscrupulous in the presentation of 
his own case and the misrepresentation of that of his op- 
ponent. There was at that period a passionate devotion, 
among the people, to the Union, but very little sentiment 
against slavery. The Union was paramount above every- 
thing. There was no disposition to interfere with slavery 
where it was. The only unity on anti-slavery was against 
its extension into the Territories. Lincoln prepared his first 
speech in this debate with great care, and then submitted it 
to the party leaders who had put him forward and who con- 
stituted his advisers. When he came to the sentence, "A 
house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this Gov- 
ernment cannot endure permanently half slave and half free," 
they unanimously advised him to cut it out. They told him 
that Douglas would take advantage of it by appealing to the 
sentiment for the preservation of the Union as paramount to 
anything else, and that he would charge Lincoln with being in 
favor of dissolving the Union in order to free the negroes. 
Lincoln said: "We are entering upon a great moral cam- 
paign of education. I am not advocating Mr. Seward's higher 
law, but I am advocating the restriction of slavery within its 
present limits, and the preservation of the new Territories for 
free labor. That is more than immediate success, and on that 
question we will ultimately succeed." Douglas did attack 
Lincoln, making this point, as the advisers thought, his main 



302 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

subject, and it was one of the principal elements in his elec- 
tion. Once more the moral quality and courage of Lincoln 
came out, when he submitted to his advisers, putting to Doug- 
las the question whether the people of the Territories could ex- 
clude slavery by their territorial legislation. Douglas was 
claiming that it was a great chance for popular sovereignty to 
repeal the Missouri Compromise of 1820 which prohibited 
slavery in the Territories, by leaving the question to the people. 
Lincoln's advisers said, "He will answer, 'Yes.' " "Well," 
said Lincoln, "by answering 'No,' it will ruin his whole pro- 
gramme. If he answers 'Yes,' that will alienate the South, 
prevent his nomination for President, and split the Democratic 
Party." The results were as Lincoln predicted. Douglas 
was elected Senator. The South bolted the Democratic Con- 
vention, the northern half nominating Douglas, the southern 
half Breckinridge. But what Lincoln did not anticipate, the 
Eepublican Party nominated him and he was elected. 

None of our Presidents have ever faced such conditions and 
problems as Lincoln encountered when inaugurated. Five 
States had already seceded. A Confederate government had 
been formed, and its whole machinery was in operation 
with a President, Cabinet, Congress, and Constitution. The 
arsenals were stripped of arms, the forts of guns, a large 
number of the ablest army officers were deserting to the 
Southern Confederacy, but his initial difficulties were with his 
own household. With the courage born of true greatness, he 
summoned to his Cabinet, statesmen who had been, for years, 
national leaders and who were his contestants in the national 
Convention. As far as possible, he drew them equally from 
those who had been Whigs and Democrats prior to the forma- 
tion of the Republican party four years before, and who had 
come together on the question of the extension of slavery^ 
though they differed upon every other matter of governmental 
policy. Seward, Chase, and Cameron were household words 
in the country. The President was hardly known. These 
strong, cultured, ambitious, and self-centred men, veterans in 
the public service, regarded with very little respect this 
homely, uncouth, and almost unknown frontiersman who had. 



THE NEW YORK COMMEMORATION 303 

as they thought, become President by accident, when that 
great honor belonged to each of them. They thought that 
the President would be a cipher, and the struggle would 
be only between them as to which, as the stronger, would so 
dominate the administration as to be practically President 
of the United States. Lincoln understood this and them 
perfectly. After a month Mr. Seward presented a written 
proposition to the President which meant practically that, 
to unite the country, war should be provoked with Eng- 
land and France, and that he in those difficulties was quite 
willing to undertake the administration of affairs. There 
is no President, including Washington, who would not on 
such a letter have either surrendered or called for the 
resignation of his Cabinet Minister. But Lincoln's answer 
was the perfection of confident strength and diplomacy. 
He wanted the services of the best equipped man in the 
country for Secretary of State, and the idol of nearly a 
majority of his party, and so he said, in effect, "The Euro- 
pean war will lead to their siding with the South and dis- 
solving the Union. We are to have a civil war, and one is 
enough at once. You can perform invaluable service in your 
great department. I have been elected President and will 
discharge, myself, the duties of that office." He knew that 
Chase was disparaging him in conversation and trying to 
prevent his nomination in order to get it for himself, but 
he ignored these facts and supported Chase until his finan- 
cial schemes, as Secretary of the Treasury, had given the 
country credit and money, and then promoted him out of 
the Cabinet and out of politics by making him Chief Justice 
of the Supreme Court of the United States. 

Seward early recognized the master mind of the President, 
and that behind an exterior of deference and extreme amiabil- 
ity was the confident judgment and giant grip of a natural 
leader of men. Thenceforth this most accomplished of the 
orators, rhetoricians, and dialecticians of his day, as well 
as one of its greatest statesmen, became the devoted assistant 
of his chief. 

Mr. Greeley, one of the greatest journalists the United 



304 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

States has ever produced, and possessing influence never 
since wielded by a single man upon public opinion, hated 
slavery and loved peace. In practical matters Mr. Greeley 
was very credulous, and some of the shrewd and unscrupulous 
Southern leaders made him believe that they were empowered 
to treat for peace upon honorable terms. Lincoln knew better. 
He suggested to Mr. Greeley that he find out by a personal 
interview, but soon discovered that the negotiations between 
these alleged Confederate Commissioners and the great 
journalist were part of a scheme on their part to gain time. 
He solved that problem in a characteristic way by suddenly 
issuing a proclamation, "to whom it may concern," saying 
that anybody authorized to treat on behalf of the Confederate 
Government would have safe conduct through the United 
States to Washington and return, and the Commissioners 
disappeared. The habit of tireless industry by day and 
night, patient research, and clear analysis, were applied by 
the President to the problems of the war. The great wars 
of Europe are carried on by the general staff — the civil 
government at home forwarding recruits and furnishing sup- 
plies — but we had no machinery or equipment for a great 
war. We had no general staff. Officers had to be tried 
at fearful loss of life upon the battle-field, and jealousies 
among them embarrassed operations; but in the White 
House was developed a great strategist and commander with 
neither partisanship nor prejudice. He sifted the claims of 
the different generals, and one by one eliminated them until 
he placed Grant in supreme command. He knew the posi- 
tion all over the vast region of the War, of both his own 
troops and those of the enemy. He studied the maps until 
the roads for marching, and transportation facilities for con- 
centrating, were better known by him than by any of the mili- 
tary chiefs. His guiding hand and suggestive brain prevented 
many a disaster and turned many a defeat into victory. 
He familiarized himself with every department of the gov- 
ernment, and, while giving full credit to his Cabinet, he was 
still the master in the despatches and negotiations finally 



THE NEW YORK COMMEMORATION 305 

agreed upon by the Secretary of State, and in the operations 
of the Treasury, the War, and the Navy Department. 

It was vital to the success of the Union that the Confed- 
eracy should not be assisted by foreign interference. He 
knew that it had been the object of European statesmen, 
since the Holy Alliance and the Monroe Doctrine, to divide, 
if possible, the United States, and prevent a great world 
power growing up in the Western Hemisphere. He might 
have declared war on account of the equipment of the Con- 
federate cruiser Alabama in British ports. England might 
have had a pretext for war when Captain Wilkes took the 
Confederate Commissioners from a British vessel. But in 
the one case he trusted to diplomacy and delay, and in the 
other he promptly decided that the American officer had no 
right to go upon the deck of a British ship, sailing under 
the British flag, and seize its passengers, and promptly sur- 
rendered the Confederate Commissioners. With the feeling 
that there was in the country, at that time, of bitterness 
and resentment against Great Britain, no man but Abraham 
Lincoln could have prevented a war, I have recently learned 
that unknown to his Cabinet he would many an evening 
drop into the house of the British Minister, and the effect 
of those consultations sent direct to the other side in con- 
fidence must have been of incalculable influence in causing 
British statesmen to keep hands off, and especially in so 
advising Queen Victoria and Prince Albert that they re- 
mained through all our revolution staunchly our friends. 

Lincoln hated slavery, but his love for the Union was 
greater. If he could save the Union by freeing all the slaves, 
or part of them, or none of them, he would so save the Union. 
I remember the gathering, and then the full force, of the 
storm against him because he would not free the slaves. 
Thaddeus Stevens, Horace Greeley, Benjamin Wade, Henry 
Winter Davis, and all the old Abolitionists like Wendell 
Phillips, and William Lloyd Garrison, were the mighty lead- 
ers of a formidable and an intelligent assault which few, 
if any, but him could have resisted. He knew that at least 



306 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

one-half of the Union Army cared nothing about slavery, 
but were willing to die for the Union. He knew that New 
York, Connecticut, and New Jersey would be uncertain, if 
the issue were for slavery. He knew that the hundreds of 
thousands of soldiers from Kentucky, Tennessee, Maryland, 
Missouri, and Virginia — who were among the best troops he 
had — might join the Confederate Army and carry with them 
their States if he attempted to free the slaves before they 
saw it was a necessity of war. The folly of these brilliant 
reformers is best exhibited by an incident which I knew, 
when they answered this statement by saying it would be 
a gain to the cause if the border States were all lost and 
their troops with them. When, however, with knowledge 
greater than all of them, with a wisdom surer than any of 
them, with a contact and understanding with the plain peo- 
ple of the country such as none of them possessed, he saw 
the time had come when the enemy must be deprived of the 
workers of the field who were supplying their armies, and 
the servants in their camps who were attending to their 
wants and relieving their fighting force, he issued the im- 
mortal Proclamation of Emancipation and the doom of the 
Confederacy was sealed. 

Justice and mercy were Lincoln's supreme characteristics. 
He bore no enmities, cherished no ill will, and never exe- 
cuted any revenges. While the whole North was raging 
against those who had rebelled, and millions believed that 
the destruction of their properties, the devastation of their 
lands, and the loss of their slaves, which were their main prop- 
erty, was a just punishment for endeavoring to break up the 
LTnion, Lincoln appreciated thoroughly the conditions which 
had impelled them to rebel. In the early days of the War 
he argued earnestly with his Cabinet and the leaders in 
Congress for authorization to offer the South four hundred 
millions of dollars as a compensation for freeing their 
slaves. To the answer that the country could not stand the 
expense, he said, "The War is costing four millions a day 
and it will certainly last one hundred days." After he had 
visited Richmond when the War was over, and returned to 



THE NEW YORK COMMEMORATION 307 

Washington, he again urged this proposition, saying that 
the South was completely exhausted and this four hundred 
million would be the best investment the country could 
make in at once restoring peace and good will between all 
sections, and furnishing the capital to the Southern people 
to restore their homes, recuperate their fortunes and start 
their industries. But in the bitter passions of the hour the 
proposition received no support. 

A reputation for wit and humor or story-telling has been 
fatal to many brilliant Americans. The people of the United 
States prefer serious men, even if stupid and platitudinous 
in speech, to those who, no matter how brilliant in all ways, 
are nevertheless famous for humor and anecdote. Lincoln 
survived because this faculty and habit did not become 
known until after he was President. I heard him tell a 
great many stories and every one of them enforced and 
clinched the argument stronger than hours of logic. We 
must remember that there was no civil service, that there 
were more appointments to office in the creation of the 
internal revenue system and in the customs a hundred 
fold then, than had ever been before; and that an army 
of two millions of men had to be officered, and the ques- 
tion of the appointment and promotion of these officers 
come to the President; and the same of a large navy. The 
pressure of office-seekers who came in swarms led by their 
senators and congressmen, would have crushed him, except 
for his faculty of turning them off with an apt story or a 
joke. A political leader in Maryland at that period ap- 
peared nearly every day at the White House with a regi- 
ment of hungry applicants. Baltimore was only an hour 
away, and it was so little expense that they could descend 
like an army of locusts at frequent intervals at the White 
House. The President, wearied until even his patience was 
exhausted, directed one day that they should all be admitted 
at once. They filled the large room in which he stood. 
He was far from well and said, "Gentlemen, I at last have 
something that I can give you all." With one acclaim they 
commenced saying, "Thank you, Mr. President! Thank you, 



308 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Mr. President!" and their leader started to make a speech. 
The President said, "It is the smallpox. The doctor tells 
me I have varioloid!" The room was emptied in a second. 
A strong body of temperance people came to him after 
General Grant had won many victories and he was contem- 
plating making him Commander-in-chief, — protested and even 
went so far as to demand Grant's dismissal on the ground 
that he was a hard drinker. Lincoln answered, ** Ladies and 
Gentlemen, I wish you would kindly tell me the brand of 
whiskey General Grant drinks. I would like to send a few 
bottles to my other generals." He rarely, with all his wit, 
humor, and faculty for apt illustration, said anything which 
would hurt the feelings of his hearer. 

He cared little for poetry, but in early youth he had found 
in an old almanac a poem which he committed to memory and 
repeated often all through his life. It was entitled "Immor- 
tality," and the first verse was: 

"Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud? 
Like a swift-fleeting meteor — a fast-flying cloud — 
A flash of the lightning — a break of the wave — 
He passeth from life to his rest in a grave." 

He reverenced the sentiment of that poem. One day a Con- 
gressman with a delegation of constituents who wanted offices, 
came into the room very drunk, and commenced a speech 
to the President by saying, ' ' Oh ! why should the spirit of 
mortal be proud?" The President answered coldly, "I see 
no reason whatever," and dismissed them. Probably rem- 
iniscent of the loved and lost, he often repeated this verse 
from Oliver Wendell Holmes: 

"The mossy marbles rest 
On the lips that he has prest 

In their bloom ; 
And the names he loved to hear 
Have been carved for many a year 

On the tombl" 

"With malice toward none, with charity for all." This 
line, in one of his Inaugurals, summed up the philosophy of 



THE NEW YORK COMMEMORATION 309 

his life. He was six feet four inches in height, with muscles 
of steel, and in early life among the rough, cruel, hard- 
drinking youth of the neighborhood was the strongest of 
them all; but his strength was always used to protect the 
weak against the strong, and to humble the bully, who is 
the terror of such communities. During his youth and early 
manhood he lived where drinking was so common that it 
was the habit, and the young men were all addicted to 
whiskey and tobacco-chewing, but the singular purity of 
his nature was such, that notwithstanding the ridicule of 
his surroundings, he never used alcohol or tobacco. When 
President, he so often reversed the sentences of court mar- 
tials which condemned convicted soldiers to death, that the 
generals complained bitterly. I heard General Sherman at 
one of his birthday dinners, when asked by the generals 
present how he got over these pardons, as the findings of 
the Court had to be sent to the President for approval, an- 
swer grimly, "I shot them first." 

The day before election, in 1864, when to the anxieties in 
the field were added those of the canvass, he heard of a 
widow whose five sons had enlisted and all been killed, and 
wrote to her in his own hand one of the most pathetic letters 
of condolence there is in such literature. 

He is our only President who came to that great office 
from absolutely original American frontier conditions. Our 
early Presidents were landed aristocrats or the products 
of the great colleges of the country. Even the least equipped 
of our chief magistrates had opportunities for culture from 
the outside which amounted to a liberal education, but this 
man of the log cabin and the woods, having had the ad- 
vantages of neither teachers, nor schools, nor guides in the 
selection of books, courses of reading, or curriculum of study, 
before death removed him from the presidency towered high 
among the cultured, the statesmen, and all the gifted genius 
of the country, in both ideas and expression. 

I first saw Lincoln when he stepped off his car for a few 
minutes at Peekskill, while on his way to Washington for 
his inauguration. He was cheerful and light hearted, though 



810 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

he travelled through crowds, many of whom were enemies, 
part of the time in secret, and all the time in danger of 
assassination. I met him frequently three years afterwards, 
when care, anxiety, and overwork had made him look prema- 
turely aged. I was one of the Committee in charge of the 
funeral train which was bearing his body to his home, while 
on its way through the State of New York. The hostile 
hosts of four years before were now standing about the road- 
way with bared heads, weeping. As we sped over the rails 
at night, the scene was the most pathetic ever witnessed. 
At every cross-roads the glare of innumerable torches illu- 
mined the whole population, from age to infancy, kneeling 
on the ground, and their clergymen leading in prayers and 
hymns. The coffin was placed in the capitol at Albany that 
the Governor, State Officers, and Legislature might have a 
farewell look at the great President. The youthful confi- 
dence of my first view was gone, also the troubled and worn 
look of the closing years of his labors, but there rested upon 
the pallid face and noble brow an expression in death of 
serenity, peace, and happiness. 

We are celebrating within a few months of each other the 
ter-centenary of Milton and the centenaries of Poe and Dar- 
win. Our current literature of the daily, weekly, and 
monthly press is full of eulogy of the Puritan poet, of his 
influence upon English literature and the English language, 
and of his inmiortal work, "Paradise Lost." There are not 
in this vast audience twenty people who have read "Paradise 
Lost," while there is scarcely a man, woman, or child in 
the United States who has not read Lincoln's "Speech at 
Gettysburg." Few gathered to pay tribute to that remark- 
able genius, Edgar Allan Poe, and yet in every school house 
in the land to-day the children are reciting or hearing read 
extracts from the address of Lincoln. Darwin carved out a 
new era in scientific research and established the truth of 
one of the most beneficent principles for the progress and 
growth of the world. Yet Darwin's fame and achievements 
are for the select few in the higher realms of liberal learn- 
ing. But for Lincoln — the acclaim goes up to him to-day 



THE NEW YORK COMMEMORATION 311 

as one of the few foremost men of all the ages, from states- 
men and men of letters in every land, from the halls of 
Congress and of the Legislatures, from the seats of justice, 
from colleges and universities, and above and beyond all, 
from the homes of the plain people of the United States. 



THE BOSTON COMMEMORATION 



THE BOSTON COMMEMORATION 

THE city of Boston had an elaborate official celebration 
under the direction of a Committee of Twenty-five, ap- 
pointed by the Honorable Geo. A, Hibbard, Mayor of Boston, 
of which committee Mr. Bernard J. Rothwell was Chairman, 
and Colonel J. Payson Bradley, Secretary. The Committee 
was composed of the leading citizens, and under its auspices, 
special and numerous celebrations were planned and carried 
out throughout the city. 

On the morning of the Centenary day, commemorative ex- 
ercises were held in all of the schools, well-known speakers 
appearing upon the programmes ; the general idea of the Bos- 
ton Committee being — as was the prevailing desire elsewhere — 
to make the celebration not only a tribute and a memorial, but 
an educational force, disseminating among the younger genera- 
tion knowledge of the life, the ideals, and the deeds of Lin- 
coln. One hundred and thirteen thousand school children 
took part in the observances of the day. 

Another feature of the morning celebration was the joint 
session, at noon, of the Senate and House of Representatives 
of Massachusetts, commemorative of the day — the Honorable 
Henry Cabot Lodge, United States Senator from Massachu- 
setts, delivering the impressive oration. 

The afternoon was given over to celebrations by the Grand 
Army of the Republic and the various other patriotic societies, 
while in the evening a great mass-meeting gathered at Sym- 
phony Hall. Here crowds stood in the streets for hours, wait- 
ing for the doors to open at 7:30 o'clock; and the big edifice 
was filled and overflowing in less than ten minutes, with twice 
as many people unable to get into the building and being 
turned away. Major Henry L. Higginson acted as permanent 
chairman of the meeting. Upon the platform, in addition to 
the speakers of the occasion, were seated Governor Draper, 
members of his staff, and representatives of practically every 

S15 



816 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

line of City and State activity. Members of the Grand Army 
Posts of Boston were present, and their colors were planted on 
either side of the stage. A section of the auditorium was re- 
served for these veterans of the Civil War. 

Here the oration was delivered by the Honorable 'John D. 
Long, Ex-Secretary of the Navy, a former Governor of Massa- 
chusetts ; and the author of the famous ' ' Battle Hymn of the 
Republic," Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, read an original poem on 
Lincoln. Other features of the meeting were an address by 
Honorable Geo. A. Hibbard, Mayor of Boston, and the read- 
ing of the Governor's Proclamation by Colonel J. Payson 
Bradley, Secretary of the Lincoln Day Committee. 

The city was dotted with flags ; they hung from the immense 
public buildings, and waved from windows and balconies of 
private homes; while in the harbor the foreign and American 
vessels observed the day by flying their flags — tow-boats, fer- 
ries, and fishing boats joining in this silent memorial. 



A VISION 

JULIA WAED HOWE 

THROUGH the dim pageant of the years 
A wondrous tracery appears: 
A cabin of the western wild 
Shelters in sleep a new-bom child. 

Nor nurse, nor parent dear, can know 
The way those infant feet must go; 
And yet a nation's help and hope 
Are sealed within that horoscope. 

Beyond is toil for daily bread, 
And thought, to noble issues led; 
And courage, arming for the mom 
For whose behest this man was born. 

A man of homely, rustic ways, 
Yet he achieves the forum's praise, 
And soon earth's highest meed has won, 
The seat and sway of Washington. 

No throne of honors and delights; 
Distrustful days and sleepless nights, 
To struggle, suffer, and aspire, 
Like Israel, led by cloud and fire. 

A treacherous shot, a vsob of rest, 
A martyr's palm upon his breast, 
A welcome from the glorious seat 
Where blameless souls of heroes meet; 

And, thrilling through unmeasured days, 
A song of gratitude and praise; 
A cry that all the earth shall heed, 
To God, who gave him for our need. 
817 



THE GREAT PACIFICATOR 

HON. JOHN D. LONG 

WE are here to commemorate the one hundredth birth- 
day of Abraham Lincoln — a great and good man in 
the simple, fundamental sense of the words. We recall that 
supreme life, that magnanimous soul full of charity and with- 
out malice. His rugged face, his lank, homely figure, rise 
before us transfigured to a beauty beyond that of the statued 
Apollo in yonder niche, as the beating heart transcends the 
lifeless marble. 

The personal appearance of the famous men of history- 
is always a factor in our ideal of them. In the mind's eye 
we picture Richard, the Lion Heart, riding in his coat of mail 
and swinging his ponderous battle-axe, and George Washing- 
ton, in the dignified costume of a gentleman of the old school. 
But there are no adventitious aids to the effect of the personal 
appearance of Abraham Lincoln, nor did he need any. He 
was six feet four inches high, a little bent in the shoulders, 
with large hands and feet, a frame of great joints and bones, 
a prominent nose and mouth, a high forehead and coarse 
dark hair, and was dressed, when President, in homely and 
loosely fitting black. His furrowed and melancholy face and 
sad eyes were suggestive of a "man of sorrows and acquainted 
with grief," yet were capable of quickest transition into an 
expression of infinite humor. What depths of feeling and 
tenderness lay under that rugged visage, what divine sym- 
pathy with his fellow men, and an enslaved or weak and 
erring brother! And beneath that proverbial wit which so 
often lighted it, there lay also the fountain of tears. An 
exquisite pathos breathed from the chords of a sympathetic, 
softly attuned nature, as if you caught from them the sensi- 
tive wistful tones of Schumann's "Traumerei." 

It is an unfounded notion that the conditions of our frontier 

318 



THE BOSTON COMMEMORATION 319 

life — alas! we no longer have any frontier — -are to be counted 
unfavorable. On the contrary, they have been, from the 
days when Massachusetts was herself a frontier, the best soil 
for characteristic American ambition and growth. There are 
those who express surprise that Lincoln was the product of 
what they deem the narrow and scanty environment from 
which he sprang. As well wonder at the giant of the forest, 
deep rooted, bathing its top in the upper air, fearless of 
scorch of sun or blast of tempest, sprung from the fertile 
soil and luxuriant growth of the virgin earth, and rich with 
the fragrance and glory of Nature's paradise! I can hardly 
think of a life more fortunate. The Lincolns settled in 
Hingham, Massachusetts, a few years after the coming of 
the Mayflower. The family ranks with our early Puritan 
nobility of worth and character. One branch of it migrated 
to Pennsylvania and thence to Virginia. More than a hun- 
dred years ago Lincoln's grandfather went thence to Ken- 
tucky, built a log cabin, cleared a farm, and was killed by 
Indians. Lincoln's father was of the same sort— pioneer, 
farmer, hunter, uneducated, but in touch with the sturdy 
qualities that were the mark of the Kentucky settlers. His 
mother, dying in his early boyhood, was a woman of beauty, 
of character, and of education enough to teach her husband 
to write his name. His stepmother, saintly Christian soul, 
sheltered the orphan under her loving care, and, scanty as 
was her lot, allured him to brighter worlds and led the way. 
Compared with the luxurious profusion of to-day, it was 
wretched and hopeless poverty; but, compared with the 
standard of the then neighborhood and time — the only right 
standard — it was the independence of men who owned the 
land, who strode masters of the soil, who were barons, not 
serfs, who were equal with their associates, and among whom 
the child Abraham Lincoln, eating his bread and milk from 
a wooden bowl as he sat on the threshold of his father's 
cabin — one side of it wide open to the weather — was no more 
an object of despair or pity than the babe who, cradled among 
the flags by the river's brink, dreamed of the hosts of Israel 
to whom he should reveal the Tables of the Law of God, 



320 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

and whom he should lead to the green pastures of the Prom- 
ised Land. It is not because the same or like qualities of 
character do not still inhere in human nature, that America 
— nay, the world — will never again see the like of Lincoln, 
but because the circumstances of his early and later life can 
never be reproduced. America, alas! had already grown old 
— old with power, with wealth, with the exhausting ravage 
and absorption of her territory, and with the infusions of 
what we used to call the Old World. The frame-setting of 
Abraham Lincoln's youth is as absolutely gone as the great 
American desert, now a garden, or the buffalo and his Indian 
chaser, now ghosts of a dream. 

Nor is it true that Lincoln had no education in his boyhood. 
He, indeed, went little to school, yet he learned to read, 
write, and cipher; and what more does any school-boy learn 
to-day? "Reading," says Bacon, summing up education, 
"maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an 
exact man." All these had the youth, Abraham Lincoln. 
With them he stood at the gate of all treasures, key in hand, 
as much master of the future as a graduate of Yale or Har- 
vard. He knew the Bible thoroughly, ^sop's *' Fables," 
"Pilgrim's Progress," "Robinson Crusoe," the "Lives" of 
Washington and Henry Clay; Burns, and later, Shakespeare. 
He not only read them with the eye, but made them a part 
of his mind. The list is small, but it is a range of history 
and poetry. Washington and Clay may well have been the 
spur of Lincoln's ambitious Americanism; the Bible and 
Burns, of his inspiration and sentiment and unexcelled style; 
-lEsop's "Fables" and "Pilgrim's Progress," of his aptness 
of illustration. 

The incidents of his early life are few, but suggestive. 
At nineteen he made a trip down the Mississippi River on 
a flatboat to New Orleans, and there sold a cargo — a trip 
of larger education than Thomas Jefferson had ever taken at 
the same age. A year later his father, who for four years 
had been living in Indiana, went to Illinois; and the boy, 
driving the ox-team which bore all the household goods, 
helping build the home of logs, and split the rails of the farm 



UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN 



ANN ARBOR, ^/Cy/"'~^<r~ ■•>■> C 



Mu^^^^^ ^' 



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Facsimile of Manuscript Tribute from James B. Angell. President Emeritus 
of the University of Michigan 



THE BOSTON COMMEMORATION 321 

fence — those rails so famous afterwards — was thus a resident 
of three States of the Union before his majority, three States 
representing the very growth of his magnificent country. 
Coming of age, he made a second flatboat descent to New 
Orleans. It was there he saw for the first time the chaining, 
whipping, and sale of negroes, and it may be that the im- 
pression then made, inspired those immortal words in his 
Second Inaugural: 

"Fondly do we hope — fervently do we pray — that thia mighty scourge 
of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue 
until all the wealth piled by the bondman's two hundred and fifty 
years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood 
drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, 
as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, 'The 
judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.'" 

Returning to Illinois, he was clerk in a village store, which 
meant again opportunities — by no means suffering — under 
comparison with those of a college graduate of to-day in a 
lawyer's or broker's oflSce in the city. It meant constant 
discussion of political, religious, and social questions. It 
meant a struggle for mastery in physical exercise and grocery- 
store debate. At twenty-three, in the Black Hawk War, 
Lincoln was Captain of a military company— another step 
in large American life. Then he "kept store," where his 
honesty won him the name of "Honest Abe." At twenty- 
four he was Postmaster of the village — in other words, the 
centre and conduit of its intelligence. All this time he was 
absorbing every book he could get, learning law and mathe- 
matics, and, when his store became a failure, supported him- 
self by surveying. He had already engaged in political life, 
often addressed his fellow-citizens with telling effect, was 
defeated as a candidate for the Illinois House of Representa- 
tives when twenty-three, and elected at twenty-five. 

Review this first chapter, and tell me where can be found 
a better preparation for an American career. To what one 
of those whom we call the favored youths of the land have 
not his splendid advantages of social position and university 
education sometimes seemed an obstacle rather than a help 



322 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

in the path that leads through the popular hedge to the pop- 
ular service? Hard lines! Lincoln's is rather one of the 
illustriously fortunate careers of young men. The accidents 
of hard manual toil, scanty living, no money, splitting of 
rails, are only the paint and pasteboard of the scene, the 
tricks with which rhetoric loves to embellish the contrasts of 
a eulogy, ''A man 's a man for a' that." 

Lincoln was reelected three times to the Legislature, serv- 
ing with Douglas and others who, like himself, became after- 
wards famous. He identified himself with anti-slavery 
measures, protesting with only one other associate, at a time 
when even a protest was almost political martyrdom, against 
the extremities of pro-slavery. Meantime he went into the 
practice of the law, where again his opportunity was large. 
Each County had its Court House, and this, rude as it might 
be, was always, in the absence of other attractions — and there 
were few other attractions — the centre of popular interest 
and attendance, the arena for advocacy and trial. From one 
to another the lawyers rode a circuit. Among them were 
some of the brightest men of the time, afterwards potent in 
national councils, among whom Lincoln's genius of homely 
power soon bore him to the front, a favorite alike with clients 
and the bar. With this came still further prominence in all 
public range. He delivered lectures on politics, temperance, 
literature, and inventions. He was a favorite on the stump. 
An ardent Henry Clay Whig, he was often pitted against 
Douglas and other Democratic leaders. He was a moving 
spirit in the Harrison campaign of 1840 and the Clay and 
Polk campaign in 1844, being on the Illinois Whig electoral 
ticket each time, the second time at its head. In 1848, as 
afterwards just before the War, he spoke in New England. 
When, therefore, either as a matter of reproach or apotheosis, 
his candidacy for the presidency in 1860 is referred to as 
that of an unknown Illinois rail-splitter, it is well enough to 
remember that some twenty years before that time he was 
the foremost popular champion of anti-slavery principles in 
the North-west. 

In 1847 he entered the Thirtieth Congress of the United 



THE BOSTON COMMEMORATION 323 

States. There he introduced, and vigorously advocated, pun- 
gent Resolutions concerning the Mexican War, and a 
Bill to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia — a measure 
which afterwards became law by his Presidential approval. 
For the next decade he devoted himself mainly to the law, 
in which he earned a modest competence. 

Had his life ended here, it would have been a fortunate 
and successful life, indeed, but we should not be celebrating 
it to-day. But it did not end here. This was only the ves- 
tibule opening into the temple of the Lord, where he was 
to be at once the high priest and the sacrifice. 

Since our national independence began, there have been 
three great eras: first, the adoption of the Constitution under 
Madison and Hamilton ; second, its construction by interpre- 
tation under Marshall and Webster, which gave the Federal 
Union a larger range of sovereignty than its strict letter ; and, 
third, the exercise of that sovereignty, resulting in the en- 
tirety of the Republic, the abolition of slavery, and the equality 
of citizenship under Abraham Lincoln. Of this last era Lin- 
coln was a typical spokesman and representative more than 
any other man. Other men may have at times more bril- 
liantly illuminated the path. He, by force of circumstances 
and his own force, was the path itself. Seward stated, but 
Lincoln both stated and cut the Gordian knot of the ''irrepres- 
sible conflict." 

The founders of our constitutional government expected 
the early extinction of slavery. Side by side Northerner and 
Southerner, Jefferson and Franklin, argued for its restriction. 
Their anticipations were not fulfilled. The cotton interest 
became identified with the possession and extension of slave 
labor. The slave power was the nerve centre of the southern 
half of the United States and, for a period, of our whole 
political system. It infibred Northern pecuniary interests in 
its mesh, and they became pro tanto sharers in the respon- 
sibility for it. For years it dominated the national govern- 
ment. It added new States to its circle. It fought to keep 
equal pace with the institutions of freedom. It repealed 
compromises that barred its loathsome efflux upon the fair 



324 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

territorial lands on which the sunlight of liberty was dawn- 
ing. It recaptured its fugitive slaves in Northern capitals. 
It threatened the Union when the eagle of freedom shrieked. 
And at last, under the Dred Scott decision, it claimed pro- 
tection and the right of enslavement even in the Territories. 
There was but one step more, and that was that the slave- 
owner might marshal his slaves in the free States themselves 
— aye, even under the shadow of Bunker Hill. The crisis had 
come, indeed. In short, as Lincoln put it in those memorable 
words : 

"A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this govern- 
ment cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not 
expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall; 
but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one 
thing or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest 
the further spread of it . . . or its advocates will push it forward 
until it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new, 
North as well as South." 

Stephen A. Douglas, Senator from Illinois, one of the most 
forcible men in our history, had taken the ground — called 
the Doctrine of Squatter Sovereignty — that the people of a 
Territory should decide for themselves whether slavery should 
exist there or not. Plausible as it seemed, it ignored the 
slave, and Lincoln exploded it with the simple formula that 
it amounted simply to this, **That if any one man choose to 
enslave another, no third man shall be allowed to object." 
Grant, as he did, that slavery had a constitutional existence 
in the slave States where it was established, yet the moment 
it sought to enslave any human being in the Territories of 
the United States, it became there an unwarranted crime 
against humanity, and the government was bound in con- 
science and in duty to resist it by every means in its power, 
and to keep the national Territories for the homes and shrines 
of freedom. From 1854 to 1861 the debate between these 
great gladiators raged. The goiy battlefields of history are 
not so inspiring as this battle between conscience and crime. 
Neither of the men was fifty years old, both sons of the farm, 
makers of their own fortunes, leaders of the people, speaking 



THE BOSTON COMMEMORATION 325 

to millions of their countrymen, and standing, one of North- 
ern birth for the right of extension of slavery, the other, 
Southern born, for its restriction and for a Union which 
should cease to be divided and thereby ultimately become all 
free. 

It was not a matter of chance that Lincoln was the cham- 
pion of freedom. That he was so, proves the steady prepara- 
tion and the commanding talents which fitted him for the 
place. By the Illinois Legislature of 1855 he had come very 
near to be chosen United States Senator; and at the Eepub- 
lican National Convention in 1856 he received one hundred 
and ten votes as candidate for the vice-presidency on the 
part of the Republican party, of which meantime he had 
become one of the founders, and of which he was thenceforth 
in the North-west the undoubted leader. At its Conventions 
in Illinois he was its spokesman, and in 1858 contested with 
Douglas before the people the issue of the next United States 
senatorship. It was in this contest that Lincoln challenged 
Douglas to a series of six joint debates, which are the most 
remarkable and influential of their kind in American — if not 
in all forensic — history. Nor was it by any means a one- 
sided contest, either in the matter of the debate or of the men 
who debated it. Here, again, do not count Lincoln less than 
he was. He was now a master thoroughly equipped for the 
discussion. It is doubtful whether his superior for that work 
could have been found in the whole country. Massachusetts, 
New York, Ohio, and other States were rich in material; 
but which of their orators — what Sumner or Seward or 
Chase — could have brought to that arena of the plain people 
the lance or mail that would have made or met the charge 
like his? 

It is a time in Lincoln's life to be dwelt upon, because 
then was the formative process of public sentiment, of which 
his administration later was the expression. In this great 
debate he planted his feet on the rock of the Declaration of 
Independence, which had always been and always was his 
political philosophy and faith. Again and again, at this time 
and forever after, he returned to it. Its imperishable inspira- 



S26 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

tion to him was union and liberty — first, the entirety of an 
indissoluble Union, which must be either all slave or all free, 
but which, second, must be all free because ''all men are 
created equal," 

Ah, those old anti-slavery days which, so swift is time, not 
many of you here recall ! Not even the lustre of the Revolu- 
tionary period bursting into national independence shone with 
such beauty of holiness, such moral effulgence, such ardor 
for the enfranchisement, not of a nation, conscious only of 
general mild subjection to laws in the making of which it 
did not have direct representation, but of a proletariat of 
poor, despised, enslaved but fellow human beings. It is this 
which makes the anti-slavery crusade the era of our New 
England chivalry. Then its true knight couched his lance 
and its minstrel song. It nerved the iron will of Garrison, 
who would not equivocate and who would be heard. It rang 
from the lips of Phillips, that Puritan Apollo, more beautiful 
than the son of Latona and higher-bred, whose tongue was 
his lute and whose swift shaft was winged with the immortal 
fire of liberty. It pointed the rh>Tne of Lowell, and trans- 
formed a Boston Brahmin into a Down East "Bird of Free- 
dom." It made Whittier the expression in verse of New 
England's intense and passionate impulse for freedom and 
for breaking all chains that bind the limb or mind of any 
brother man, — an unplumed knight in Quaker garb. It 
throbbed with magnetic fervor in the heart of Andrew. It 
inspired the pen of Mrs. Stowe. Electrified by her genius, 
the great popular heart thrilled with veneration and sym- 
pathy for the meek and lowly Christian in bondage, Uncle 
Tom. Its heroisms fired the student, and Harvard and her 
sisters were again the mothers of heroes. Its passion cul- 
minated in the immortal hymn of Mrs. Howe, and cried 
aloud — 

"Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord." 

But why name these and not also the dwellers in unnum- 
bered homes of plain living and high thinking all over the 
land, under the shadow of Plymouth Rock, and along the sea. 



THE BOSTON COMMEMORATION 327 

and among the farms, as well as in the abodes of culture 
and wealth, peers of the exaltation of their leaders, kindled 
with equal enthusiasm for human rights, fired with the re- 
former's zeal, and later giving themselves and their sons a 
sacrifice upon the altar of their faith on the field of battle 
and of blood? As Christ died to make men holy, so they 
died to make men free. All honor to them and to you, their 
veteran surviving comrades here to-night ! 

It was, indeed, the era of the tumultuous upheaval of the 
moral sense. It was the burst of the thundercloud, and its 
lightnings fell and its rains descended and its floods poured, 
and the house built upon the sand of inhumanity fell, and 
great was the fall thereof. Of course there were extrava- 
gances and extremists. Bitterness and passion and sectional 
inflammations raged, but above them, as we look back, like 
Neptune rising above the tumult of the waves, the figure of 
Lincoln dominates the scene. His voice is calm, but reaches 
all abroad. He gathers the bolts of the storm into his hand. 
He gives utterance to the great underlying public sentiment 
of the time. He becomes the embodiment of the common 
sense. Others may have more passionately stirred and in- 
flamed the popular heart. He stirred, but also guided it. 
Patiently, but surely, he led the way, and at the last his was 
the hand that struck the fetters from the slave. Well is it 
that Boston, through the munificence of one of her citizens, 
has in one of her busy public squares set up his statue beside 
which a kneeling slave, just set free, forgets the broken fet- 
ters at his feet as with adoring eyes he looks up into the 
face, and bends beneath the benediction of the hand, of his 
Christ and Saviour. 

In the contest with Douglas, Lincoln won the popular vote ; 
Douglas, the Legislature and the senatorship. But it meant 
for Lincoln the presidency. His fame was now national. 
In 1859 he spoke in Kansas, the daughter of the anti-slavery 
crusade, a virgin and beautiful Andromeda, whose rescue 
was the death-knell of the monster of slavery, to whom she 
had been exposed. In the same year he spoke memorably in 
Ohio. In February, 1860, he made his famous speech at the 



S28 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Cooper Institute in New York City, and thereby won the 
presidency of the East. It is a picture worth recalling. The 
boy of the farm, the splitter of rails, the country store- 
keeper and postmaster, the peripatetic surveyor too poor to 
own his instruments, the circuit lawyer, the stump speaker 
and lank humorist of the prairie who had recently won his 
spurs in the open-air debate with Douglas, stood before the 
culture and enterprise of the metropolis of the New World. 
His presiding officer was Bryant, poet and patriot — our Bry- 
ant. His platform was arrayed with the most eminent mer- 
chants, scholars, lawyers, clergymen, business men, of the city. 
His audience was the critical intelligence of America. There 
was no doubt a kindly, half-patronizing curiosity to hear an 
uncouth champion of the West, who had crossed swords with 
the "Little Giant." If so, it quickly turned to the discrim- 
inating admiration which an Athenian audience might have 
felt and expressed as the orator rose to his theme, and in 
the pure and simple eloquence of candor, with an entire 
mastery of his subject, delivered an address which planted the 
Republican sentiment of the nation on an impregnable foun- 
dation. Lincoln's speeches became thenceforth the ready-at- 
hand material of every New England fireside. 

Under these circumstances his nomination as the Repub- 
lican candidate for the presidency in 1860 was the natural 
evolution of events. It was the selection of the one man who, 
in the popular mind, by and large, represented the national 
protest against the aggression of the slave power in the 
South and of the subserviency to it in the North, who could 
rally alike in East and West the strongest popular vote, and 
who could best hold together the patriotic sentiment of the 
free States themselves when the shock of war should come, 
not only rending apart North and South, but endangering 
even in the North the harmony of its common allegiance. 
At the Convention held in Chicago, May, 1860, Lincoln was 
nominated on the third ballot, and in the following November 
elected to the presidency. 

Never in the history of the Union was there a more critical 
and gloomy time than the interval between Lincoln's elec- 



THE BOSTON COMMEMORATION 329 

tion in November and his inauguration in March. The at- 
tempted dissolution of the Republic had come. Webster's 
prophetic nightmare was now a living horror. The helm 
of state wavered in the palsied hand of Buchanan. State 
after State seceded. Faithless and dishonest Cabinet offi- 
cers were honeycombing the military and naval strength of 
the federal government. Treason plotted in the capital. 
The very life of the President-elect was in danger when he 
left his home and made his way to Washington. His inaug- 
ural marked the new era of his life — a new departure, some- 
times disappointing his friends, but approved by the result 
and signalizing the greatness of the man — a greatness suf- 
ficient to adapt itself to new exigencies, to comprehend the 
whole vast situation, and to direct the thunderbolts of the 
storm. Up to this time he had been the charging and resist- 
less advocate and prophet. He was now the cautious and 
deliberate administrator. He had approved himself the 
genius of the spoken conscience. He was now to approve him- 
self the wise master of situations, responsibilities, and expedi- 
encies. He had been among the foremost to court the peril 
of driving the Ship of State into the angry straits. Now 
at the helm, he was the careful pilot — shy of Scylla, on the 
one hand, and of Charybdis, on the other. He who had 
seemed the boldest was now often censured as timid and as 
withholding his hand from the plough. He had been the out- 
spoken antagonist of the slave power. Now he seemed fearful 
lest he should invade its slightest constitutional right. For 
forever in his mind was the purpose of the Declaration of 
Independence — the Union of the States, with liberty its corner- 
stone. Of this Union he remembered that he had been elected 
President, and that on him — on him, perhaps, alone — was 
the awful responsibility of its preservation unbroken. To 
this duty he seemed to feel himself bound to sacrifice all else. 
The crisis that faced him was the crisis of that Union on the 
point of disruption, and to avert that peril he bent everything. 
Eleven States had seceded. If the border slave States, which 
with good reason he believed to hold the balance of power, 
should secede also, the breach would be irreparable and the 



330 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Union at an end. Because of this, caution and prudence, 
especially in dealing with the slave problem, were the charac- 
teristics of his early administration, sometimes exasperating 
his warmest supporters and the enthusiastic patriots of the 
North, but held to with serene and unflinching fidelity because 
they were the result of profound conviction. 

In the light of succeeding events, especially of the early 
defeat at Bull Run, history justifies him. Kentucky, Mis- 
souri, Maryland, were never lost, nor Tennessee or Virginia, 
except in part. The conservative element in the North, on 
which the Southern leaders counted confidently, was kept in 
line till that line was beyond breaking. I doubt if the world 
has a nobler or a more pathetic picture than that of President 
Lincoln in those days — that magnanimous soul, that spirit 
without guile or malice, that prophet among the anti-slavery 
crusaders, whose heart was still as loyal to their cause and 
as tender of the shackled slave as was that of Garrison or 
Sumner or Phillips, but consecrated to his great responsibili- 
ties as God gave him to see them, superior to the assault of 
enemies or the impatience of friends, single-eyed to the pres- 
ervation of the Union, because the preservation of the Union 
involved every hope he cherished for his country, its destruc- 
tion every calamity which for her he feared. I love to think 
that in the great providence of compensation God meantime 
gave him to know that he was right, as at the end he knew it 
when he walked the streets of Richmond one April day, Pre- 
server of the Union, Emancipator of the Slave. 

Disasters on the field came in those early months, thick and 
fast, like successive overwhelming waves. The unsuccess in 
command of many a soldier at the head of the army, inade- 
quate to the task, seemed to waste years of agonizing suspense 
in the swamps of Virginia. But, as the glacier moves, so 
slowly the resistless forces of freedom moved on. From the 
West came the victories of Grant, and then Grant himself, 
who solved the riddle of war by striking the enemies' forces, 
not by withdrawing his own, but by moving on his adversa- 
ries' works immediately, by fighting his campaigns through, 
and by "fighting them out on that line if it took all Summer." 



THE BOSTON COMMEMORATION 331 

Complications with foreign nations had been wisely avoided. 
Seward, whose services as Secretary of State should never be 
forgotten, yet had found in Lincoln a more discreet hand than 
his own in the Trent negotiations, in which the United States, 
though clearly justified by British precedent and doctrine, 
yielded its contention hardly more to a prudent policy of con- 
ciliation than to its own traditional and more liberal theory 
of the rights of neutrals on the high seas. The patriotic 
sentiment of the North had already crystallized under Lin- 
coln's wise prudence into cooperation. The border States 
were secured. Slavery, surely crumbling under his policy — 
more surely, it may now in his vindication be said, than if 
the first blow had been straight betwixt the eyes of the mon- 
ster — was abolished in the District of Columbia. Colored 
troops were enlisted, and the freedmen, wearing the uniform 
of the country of which they were henceforth to be the equal 
citizens of the Declaration of Independence, were enrolling 
their names at Wagner and Olustee on the topmost scroll of 
the heroic dead. Meantime the emancipation of slaves in the 
loyal States, under a system of compensation, had been 
considerately urged upon their owners by the President. 
Indeed, every step was taken to conciliate whatever interest 
was at stake. And when, in September, 1862, he annoimeed 
his Emancipation Proclamation, and on the first day of Janu- 
ary, 1863, gave it life, the country was ripe for its reception 
and enforcement as the timely and consummate fruit of God's 
providence and of the administration's faithful execution of 
its evolving duty. Then came Gettysburg and Vicksburg 
and Appomattox; and then that sight — oh, so pathetic, so 
full of happy tears — the Illinois rail-splitter leading his little 
son by the hand, God's benediction on his homely face, angels 
of forgiveness and mercy hovering around him as he walked 
the streets of Richmond, capital again of the old State of 
Virginia, capital of the Confederacy no longer, a poor eman- 
cipated slave woman kneeling at his feet and showering on 
them all she had, her kisses and her tears. The Union was 
preserved. Freedom was the equal right of all its children, 
white or black. The Declaration of Independence was vindi- 



382 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

cated. The house had not fallen ; it had ceased to be divided ; 
and Abraham Lincoln was forever enshrined in the heart of 
the Republic. 

Must it not be said that Abraham Lincoln's war policy, his 
policy in dealing with slavery as an element in the Union 
affecting its preservation, was right ? When, in time of crisis, 
God charges a wise man with a special responsibility above his 
fellows, does he not sometimes give him special wisdom above 
them also? 

The Emancipation Proclamation is Abraham Lincoln 's great 
fame scroll. To have at one stroke of the pen made four 
million slaves free — to have at one cut ripped the cancer from 
the Republic — there can be no greater glory in human history. 
Supplemented by the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth 
Amendments to the Federal Constitution, which, as Mr, Mead 
has said, were "the reduction to law of Lincoln's gospel and 
Lincoln's life," it is his patent to immortality. 

The colored race have every reason to cherish, as they do, 
the memory of Abraham Lincoln. All that man could do for 
them he did. They had unnumbered advocates, intense, de- 
voted, true, but none who, in addition to all else, was so wise 
as he. Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down 
his life for his friends. But Lincoln not only laid down his 
life for them, but had already given for years the very ful- 
ness of it to their uplift. He struck the shackles from their 
limbs; he struck the more chafing shackles from their souls. 
He gave them manhood. He made them soldiers of the Re- 
public. He pointed them to the paths of education and 
material thrift, and through these to the fruitions of equal 
citizenship. He was no fanatic. The Federal Constitution 
was to him no "league with hell," but the expedient instru- 
ment of a blessed union which with patience and wise pres- 
sure could yet be moulded into provision for the equal rights 
under it of all men, whatever their race or color. He did not 
shut his eyes to racial differences and to the social discrimina- 
tions which have sprung therefrom. But from the first he 
held to the faith that the negro was entitled to all the natural 
rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence, and 



THE BOSTON COMMEMORATION 333 

that, "in the right to put into his mouth the bread that his 
own hands have earned, he is the equal of every other man, 
white or black." 

Beyond the first step of freedom he was too wise to press 
the negro forward too rapidly, either for his own good or 
for the good of the Republic. With what seems now the 
pith of common sense, he would give him, as he would have 
given men of any other race or color, training to fit him 
for the functions of citizenship. He would have given him 
education, whether of the school of military service, or of the 
primer or copy book or of industrial attainment, before con- 
ferring upon him suffrage during the War, thus making it 
the expression of an intelligent and responsible citizenship 
rather than a premature agency of social disorder and politi- 
cal corruption. He would have deprecated any tidal wave 
of ignorance and irresponsibility deluging the Southern 
States and retarding their return, not only to national pros- 
perity, but to the sentiment of national union. Had he lived, 
would he not, with his rare tact, have saved us the blunder 
of unfitted, and swamping, immediate universal suffrage too 
early conferred ? Would he not rather have laid the founda- 
tions of universal suffrage in such agencies as later have found 
expression in work like that of Booker Washington? Later, 
and in due season, the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amend- 
ments to the Federal Constitution would have followed the 
Thirteenth, which was adopted during Lincoln's administra- 
tion, and the three would have been the consummation of his 
policy. He would have combined, as he always did, the natu- 
ral rights, whether of the negro or any other citizen, with 
expedient development in the use and enjoyment of them. 
Had his policy prevailed, freedom would have meant to the 
enfranchised slave, not political office or its flamboyant badges 
and titles, but the bountiful fruit of the right to eat the bread 
which his own hand earns, to add to his intellectual and 
material acquisitions, to prove by his thrift, by his attain- 
ments in scholarship, and by his accumulation of property, 
as he is now so abundantly proving, his capacity for full 
participation in affairs. The colored citizen would have been 



334. ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

saved the humiliation of his early ejectment from precipitant 
political occupation, and would sooner have secured, as he 
is now securing, that call to political service which comes, and 
will hereafter more and more come, to whatever man stands 
out with evident fitness for it. This is the true future and 
true aim for the colored race. And this is what Lincoln, 
their best friend and the best friend of their former masters, 
would have had them have. Would he could have lived to 
note their schools and colleges, their wide-spread industries, 
their men eminent in institutional, professional, and social 
life, their teachers and poets and novelists, their successful 
merchants, farmers, and manufacturers ! Had he lived, is 
it too much to say that this rising tide in their affairs would 
have sooner set in? And, were he living, with what faith 
would they still turn to him in every contingency, sure of 
justice at his hands! His legacy to us is the duty of the 
same justice at our hands. Our tributes to him are but lip 
service, if we do not see to it that no tinge of black or red 
in any man's skin shall be permitted to discriminate him in 
his rights under the law as a citizen from any other citizen 
of the Union or of any State in it. 

Two adjectives that seem especially to describe Lincoln's 
relation to the great work to which he was called are "apt" 
and "adequate." No man ever made less pretence. His 
integrity and truth were structural, born in him. His mag- 
nanimity, his superiority to personal feeling, are almost 
unparalleled in public life. It animated every impulse. It 
breathed in his repeated invitations to the Confederate gov- 
ernment to personal interviews on terms of peace; in his 
dealings with his civil and military subordinates when un- 
successful or at fault; in his patience with McClellan, his 
consideration for Burnside, his wise counsel to Hooker, 
his self-effacing disinterestedness towards Chase. It made 
him quicker to take than to lay blame. And when, at his 
death, his record was recalled, that magnanimity the whole 
world recognized. He had conquered its admiration. He 
had shamed its prejudice and ridicule; and the "scurrile 
jester," penitent and atoning, was among the first — to his 



THE BOSTON COMMEMORATION 335 

honor be it remembered — to lay his garland on the martyr's 
grave. His gentleness and tenderness of heart allied him to 
the very springs of sympathy and opened his ear to the 
humblest that sought it. A quaint humor flavored his in- 
formal speech with a homely relish, and was, as he used to 
suggest, his safety-valve during those exacting years of the 
War, It had been exaggerated, no doubt, in the report of 
it, yet it always kept him in popular rapport. More than 
this, it was a keen instrument, purposely used as such, to 
carve his way to essential results, either in debate or in 
administration. It was the humor, not of a clown, but of a 
diplomatist. In this respect, as also in respect to a seeming 
waste of his attention in arranging petty details of official 
patronage with Congressmen and office-seekers who hounded 
him — a thing which so unfavorably impressed some men of 
distinction who sought him on the higher themes of State — 
I recall a remark of Mr. Root. It was to the effect that all 
this was largely the shrewd method, where no other would 
serve, of that conciliation of interests and that winning of 
congressional help, by means of which measures vitally neces- 
sary to the great work in hand were secured, and which with 
less tact and sacrifice would have been lost. 

And with the country at large, with what consummate 
divination and wisdom Lincoln now led, now met, now fol- 
lowed, but always grasped and held — making it the mighty 
backing of his administration — the public sentiment ! Thank 
God it never lost faith in him ! 

The literature of Lincoln in his political and State papers 
is of the highest order, unsurpassed, if equalled. In temper 
and tone, in convincing force, with at the same time regard- 
ful consideration of others' views; restrained in expression, 
never extravagant or offensive, and thus making his personal 
argument more effective, they are models at once of strength 
and tact and taste in the discussion of questions of State. 
The style of this graduate from a log cabin is consummate. 
His phrasing, his neat antithesis, his clearness of statement, 
his compelling argument, his choice of apt words, his telling 
metaphors and illustrations, and the exquisite framework of 



336 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

his prepared speech — always simple, yet always complete — 
gave to his masterpieces the rare excellence of the King James 
version of Holy Writ. David sang not with a purer cadence 
or a more exalted vision. 

But far above the style, is the spirit of that literature, 
the heart that inspired it beating for all his fellow men, even 
those who reviled him and said all manner of evil against 
him. His earlier public speeches, before his higher promi- 
nence, had often the broader flavor of the stump, and were 
attuned to attract and convince the popular environment to 
which he appealed. But in the great debate with Douglas, 
and in the speeches of that time, he began to strike higher 
chords. And, beginning with his Cooper Institute Address 
and all through his State papers and formal utterances, he 
rose to the height of the benediction and charity of the divine 
Master. The State papers of no other publicist in tone and 
spirit are so responsive to the pattern of Jesus. His appeals 
were forever to justice and fairness. He never lost sight of 
the other side. He gave full credit to its argument, its 
claims, its rights, its temptations, and its extenuations, 
whether he contended with it in debate or fought it in battle 
— yea, even in the very stress of the angry fire of treason and 
war. You cannot read, then, that there sounds not in your 
ear the sweet accompaniment of a heavenly voice saying, 
"As ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them 
likewise," "Judge not that ye be not judged," "Love your 
enemies, do good to them which hate you," "Father, forgive 
them, for they know not what they do." 

And yet this man was untutored in schools of divinity — 
save in the great school of Nature's open providence, and the 
Bible of the lowly fireside — caring for no theology save that 
of love to God and to his fellow men. I love to think that in 
one of his successors the force of example in this respect is 
manifest — in the State papers, as also in the spirit, of the 
lamented McKinley, who, as those who were in close touch 
with him were always conscious, made himself a disciple of 
Lincoln and patterned him — like him, alas! even in his 
martyr's death. May the same high and inspiring ideal be 



THE BOSTON COMMEMORATION 337 

always the guiding star of those who rule this our beloved 
land! 

In that terrible struggle which involved the outrooting of 
human slavery, Lincoln never forgot that neither side was 
innocent of its existence among us, or that the people of the 
South believed in their cause, and in their construction of 
their rights under the Federal Constitution. To him they 
were the erring, not the malevolent, brother ; and the moment 
they laid down their arms their sins were forgiven them. 
In the Cooper Institute Speech, in the two nobly generous 
Inaugurals — and, indeed, always — what charity, what reach- 
ing out of the welcoming hand, what appeal to every senti- 
ment of brotherhood, what pleading for righteousness and 
peace and good will! To-day the South knows and feels all 
this. The mists and passions of half a century ago have 
faded away, and the memory of Lincoln shines like a star in 
the serene heaven of our Union in which it is our brightest 
link. 

And shall not we of this new century rise as a nation to 
the ideal of that lofty time of which he became the incarna- 
tion — the ideal of a Republic not lost in material interests, 
great and important as they are; not blinded with the glare 
of prosperity, wide and comforting as it is; not bent on be- 
coming a defiant world power, large as are the responsibilities 
that come with it; but devoted to righteousness as a people, 
to the eradication of every root of misery and wretchedness 
and injustice in our soil, and to the elevation of the humblest 
and poorest and weakest? Our apotheosis of Lincoln, even 
if exaggerated, should lift us out of the murk and stress and 
tumult of our time, and bring the jarring elements of our 
social and industrial life to a better understanding. 

Had he lived, who does not feel that the reunion of the 
national heart would have far more speedily followed the 
reunion of political bands ! Reconstruction was a most diffi- 
cult problem, and the utmost respect is to be had for the con- 
victions of the great and patriotic men who differed as to 
its solution. But I cannot doubt that the ultimate verdict of 
disinterested consideration, free from the intense feeling 



S38 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

of his time, will be with Lincoln. To him it was a practical, 
not a theoretical, or sentimental question. He did not regard 
it as worth while to determine nicely whether by their rebel- 
lion the Confederate States had lost their statehood in the 
Union, or had remained in it. If the former, it is difficult to 
see why they had not accomplished all that they attempted. 
"We fought to keep them in, and, if the victory was ours, 
as it was, they were logically, and in fact, still States in the 
Union, though their relations with the national government 
were of course so disturbed and chaotic that legislation was 
necessary to readjust those relations and to safeguard all the 
interests involved. Such was, undoubtedly, Lincoln's view; 
but he was looking to conditions, not to theories. Beginning 
with Louisiana, as soon as a reasonably large portion of its 
citizens organized a State government, adopted a free Con- 
stitution, confirmed the Thirteenth National Constitutional 
Amendment abolishing slavery, provided public schools for 
white and black, and empowered their Legislature to give the 
suffrage to the colored man, he would have restored that State 
to its harmony in the Union. The example would have been 
followed in other States. No doubt the process of such recon- 
struction would have been accompanied by injustices to the 
freedmen ; but the triumphant loyal majorities of the North 
would have safeguarded them, so that, whatever their hard- 
ships in the transition, these would probably have been small 
compared with those that came under the course adopted after 
Lincoln's death. Ten years of a reconstruction rule that is 
a melancholy and disastrous period in our history would have 
been mitigated. The enmities of the War would have been 
quieted rather than accentuated. The increased prejudice 
against the negro, arising from the natural bitterness of his 
former masters at being made his political subject, and rank- 
ling even to this day, would have been checked. Had Lin- 
coln lived — with his hold on popular sentiments, with the 
prestige of his triumph over disunion, with his sagacity and 
persuasiveness, with his knowledge of the South, and its re- 
sponding appreciation of his charity towards it — it is not too 
much to believe that he would have made his policy the 



THE BOSTON COMMEMORATION 339 

country's policy of reconstruction. Where he could not have 
wholly carried his point, he would have modified it without 
wholly sacrificing his views to those of the leaders of the 
more radical wing. But the result would have been, in the 
main, the carrying out of his. We should have been saved 
the bitter contentions of Congress with his successor, and the 
Ship of State would have ridden into safe harbor with no 
mutiny on board and the captain in command. 

Indeed, could Sumner have been conciliated to Lincoln's 
views, it would have been comparatively smooth sailing. Per- 
sonal friends, their one main difference in the matter of 
reconstruction was as to the immediate bestowal of suffrage 
upon the negro. No plan would Sumner accept that did not 
give it. Any plan would Lincoln accept that would restore 
peace, and the Union, and insure the rights of the negro in 
due season. To utilize his own homely illustration of the egg 
and the fowl, he would make sure of the fowl by hatching 
the egg rather than by smashing it; while Sumner, uncom- 
promising in his high sense of supreme duty, and single-eyed 
to what he regarded as absolutely right, would sooner smash 
the egg than have a chicken not fully fledged. It is interest- 
ing to think what would have been the course and outcome 
of the struggle between these two great leaders — the great 
doctrinaire, who was contented only with the consummation 
of his convictions, though the heavens fell, and the great 
pacificator, who would secure the same ultimate justice, 
though he gave time to the heavens to clear. Again, it can 
hardly be doubted that the same patient tact, the same hold 
on the popular sentiment, the same persuasive appeal, the 
same winning sympathy with the plain people which had won 
the debate with Douglas — which, through the War, had gath- 
ered to Lincoln's support the constantly rising volume of the 
nation's faith and confidence — would have given him the 
guidance in the reconstruction of the Union. 

The juster verdict of lapsing time recognizes the honest 
purpose of Lincoln's immediate successor in his views on re- 
construction, which were, perhaps, not far removed from 
Lincoln's own. And yet there could be no more striking 



340 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

illustration than the contrast between the two men of that 
marvellous sense and wisdom which Lincoln never failed to 
bring to the solution of every entanglement. Not of him 
could it be said, ''Vis consili expers nole ruit sua." His not 
the tomahawk of Metacom, but the persuasiveness of John 
Eliot. 

You all know the story of Lincoln's death, that tragedy 
of the War. The Rebellion was crushed, the War over, the 
slave free. The great prophet and magistrate had fought the 
good fight and kept the faith. The pistol bullet of a drunken, 
mad assassin cut the thread of life, and Abraham Lincoln 
was dead, a martyr on the altar of his country. 

As we read history — thank God, it is true rather of the 
past than the present — what vice, what filth, what insolence, 
what grinding of the poor, what indifference to human suffer- 
ing, what contempt of human rights, what rot and shame and 
meanness, have been the personal characteristics — though some- 
times associated with great qualities and achievements — of 
most of the rulers of the world! What wonder that revolu- 
tion has so often come in riot and rivers of blood ! What a 
relief to turn to this chosen of the people, without stain or 
spot, this pure in heart and blessed of the Lord! I love to 
picture in my mind's eye not more the ruler than the man. 
I fancy him at the consummation of his glory — the crown of 
honor lifted to his head, not only by his country, but by the 
world — yet simple and unaffected still. I fancy him standing 
beneath the stars on the heights of the Soldiers' Home, gazing 
over the roofs of Washington and across the historic Potomac, 
alone and lonely, dreaming not of his fame and prestige, but 
of the early pioneer days, the meagre honest home, the 
mother's devotion, the early struggles, the first revelations 
of the printed page, the first thrills of ambition for larger 
life, the growing consciousness and exercise of natural powers, 
the free, unconventional life of the prairie, the steady eleva- 
tion to higher service, the people's tournament of debate, the 
long four years of chief magistracy of the nation, years tu- 
multuous with war and intricate with statecraft, a nation in 
convulsion, an earthquake of rending forces, a fire sweeping 



THE BOSTON COMMEMORATION 841 

the land, but after and above all, the still small voice of an 
approving conscience at peace with God. 

Not his that saddest of all historic destinies — the fate of 
that mighty dynamo that once shook the world, but at last 
stood an inert lump on a lone rock in mid-ocean — ^'coelum 
undique, et undique pontus/' — his glories and principalitiea 
and powers now only dust in his hands, and his heart 
broken. 

And how truly it may be said of Lincoln, he still lives! 
He lives in bronze and marble and canvas; he lives in the 
memory of a grateful country. His sympathy with the plain 
people, felt by him and by them, yet indescribable in words, 
has given him a place in their hearts closer than that of any 
other public man. He will stand with Washington, foremost 
among our great ones. We lack discrimination when we say 
of this or that man that he was the greatest. But this may 
be said of Lincoln, that of all Americans, if not of all men 
of the nineteenth century, he achieved the most enduring, 
the greatest and purest fame. With neither the culture of 
Sumner nor the might of Webster — yet either of them in Lin- 
coln 's place, you instinctively feel, would have fallen below 
him in the discharge of his trust. No doubt his growth up- 
ward was largely due to his presidential culture and pruning, 
and that he was a greater man at its close than at its begin- 
ning. And, when we speak of him as great, we mean great 
in the general impressive sense. There is a greatness of pure 
intellect, of pure force, independent of circumstances, like some 
tall memorial shaft springing from the earth to the sky. 
There is another greatness that is like some mountain-side 
rich with foliage and verdure, towering above the plain and 
yet a part of it. Lincoln, no doubt, in marvellous variety 
of talent comes short of Franklin ; in quick fertility of genius, 
of Hamilton ; in philosophic vision, of Jefferson. But in im- 
pressiveness on his time, and in his stamp on history and pub- 
lic sentiment, Lincoln leads. He is the great American of 
his age, 

"New birth of our new soil, the First American." 



342 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

There is an element in this kind of popular greatness with- 
out which the title of great is never at last conferred. It is 
the moral element of sincerity and truth. There have been 
men who rendered inestimable services to their country, 
whose words were patriotic fire, whose shoulders upheld the 
Republic, and yet there goes with their names the unspoken 
consciousness of a lack of entire faith in them. It is the 
singular glory of Lincoln that with all his ambition we feel 
he was true to the profoundest moral instincts. God be 
praised that amid all doubt, and in spite of so many crumbling 
idols, there be now and then — aye, often — a soul that mounts 
and keeps its place ! Our tributes are not more to him per- 
sonally, than to the ideal of moral character which we have 
taught ourselves, and are teaching our children, that he stands 
for. There lie the true significance and value of our exalta- 
tion of him. 

Honor to your memory, homely rail-splitter President, that 
no act or motive of yours has ever been counted in derogation 
of the integrity of your life or example ! Good and faithful 
servant, stand forever forth in the people's hall of fame, 
crowned with their undying love and praise — sainted — im- 
mortal ! 



LINCOLN: ''VALIANT-FOR-TRUTH" 

HON. HENRY CABOT LODGE 

YOU have asked me to address you upon this, the one 
hundredth anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lin- 
coln ; to express for you and to you some of the thoughts 
which ought to find utterance when, on the completion of the 
century, we seek to pay fit homage to the memory of that 
great man. 

I know not how it may be with the many others, who, in 
these days of commemoration, will speak of Lincoln, but to 
me the dominant feeling, as I approach my subject, is a sense 
of helplessness, and a sharp realization of the impossibility of 
doing justice to such an occasion. To attempt here a review 
of his life would be labor lost. Ten stately volumes by those 
who lived in closest communion with him, and who knew him 
best, were not more than adequate to tell fitly the story of 
his life. That story, too, in varying form, is known to all 
the people, "familiar in their mouths as household words." 
From the early days of dire poverty, from the log cabin of 
the shiftless pioneer, ever moving forward in search of a 
fortune which never came, from the picture of the boy work- 
ing his sums, or reading his Bible and his Milton by the red 
light of the fire, the marvellous tale goes onward and upward 
to the solemn scene of the second inaugural, and to the burial 
of the great chief amid the lamentations of a nation. We 
know it all, and the story is one of the great treasures of the 
American people. 

Still more impossible would it be in a brief moment here 
to draw, even in the barest outline, a sketch of the events 
in which his was the commanding presence, for that would be 
to write the history of the United States during the most 
crowded and most terrible years of our existence as a nation. 

343 



344 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Yet if Lincoln's life and deeds, by their very magnitude, 
thus exclude us from any attempt even to enumerate them, 
there is, nevertheless, something still better which we can do 
upon this day, forever made memorable by his birth. We 
can render to him what I venture to think is the truest hom- 
age, that which I believe he would prize most, and compared 
to which any other is little more than lip service. We can 
pause to-day in the hurry of daily life and contemplate that 
great, lonely, tragic figure — that imagination with its touch 
of the poet, that keen, strong mind, with its humor and its 
pathos, that splendid common sense and pure character — and 
then learn from the life which the possessor of all these 
qualities lived, and from the deeds which he did, lessons 
which may not be without value to each one of us in our 
own lives, in teaching us the service which we should render 
to our country. Let me express my meaning, with slight 
variation, in his own immortal words: The world will little 
note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never 
forget what [he] did here. It is for us, the living, rather, to 
be dedicated here to the unfinished work which he who fought 
here has thus far so nobly advanced. 

In his spirit, I am about to suggest a few thoughts among 
the many which have come to me as I have meditated upon 
the life of Abraham Lincoln, and upon what, with that great 
theme before me, I should say to you to-day. 

I desire first, if I can, to take you back for a moment to 
the living man, and thereby show you what some of his trials 
were, and how he met them, for, in doing so, I believe we can 
learn how to deal with our own problems. I think, too, that 
if we thus look upon him with considerate eyes, we shall be 
inspired to seek, in public affairs, for more charitable and 
better instructed judgments upon public men and public 
events than are common now. We are apt, unconsciously 
and almost inevitably, to confuse in our minds the Lincoln 
of to-day — the Lincoln of history, as he dwells in our hearts 
and our imaginations — with the actual man who was President 
of the United States in the dark days of the Civil War, and 



THE BOSTON COMMEMORATION 345 

who straggled forward amid difficulties greater, almost, than 
any ever encountered by a leader of men. 

Mankind has never lost its capacity for weaving myths, 
or its inborn love for them. This faculty, or rather this in- 
nate need of human nature, is apparent in the earliest pages 
of human history. The beautiful and tragic myths, born of 
the Greek imagination, which have inspired poets and 
dramatists for three thousand years, come to us out of the dim 
past with the light of a roseate dawn upon them. They come 
to us alike in the great verse of Homer, and veiled in the 
gray mists of the north, where we descry the shadows of 
fighting men, and hear the clash of swords and the wild 
screams of the Valkyries. The leaders of tribes, the founders 
of States, the eponymous and autochthonous heroes in the 
infancy of civilization were all endowed by the popular imag- 
ination with a divine descent and a near kinship to the gods. 
We do not give our heroes godlike ancestors — although I 
have seen a book which traces the pedigree of Washington 
to Odin — but when they are great enough, we transmute the 
story of their lives into a myth, just like the Greeks and the 
Norsemen. Do not imagine from this that I am about to 
tell you of the "real" or the "true" Lincoln. Nothing would 
be more alien to my purpose, or more distasteful, for I 
have observed that, as a rule, when these words are prefixed 
to the subject of a biography it usually means that we have 
spread before us a collection of petty details and unworthy 
gossip which presents an utterly distorted view of a great 
man, which is, in substance, entirely false, and which grati- 
fies only those envious minds which like to see superiority 
brought down to their own level. Such presentations are as 
ignoble and base as the popular myth, however erroneous, is 
loving and beautiful — a manifestation of that noble quality 
in human nature which Carlyle has described in his "Hero 
Worship." I wish merely to detach Lincoln from the myth 
— which has possession of us all— that his wisdom, his purity, 
and his greatness were as obvious and acknowledged in his 
lifetime as they are to-day. We have this same feeling about 
the one man in American history who stands beside Lincoln 



346 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

in unchallenged equality of greatness. Washington, indeed, 
is so far removed that we have lost our conception of the 
fact that he was bitterly criticised, that he struggled with 
many difficulties, and that his words, which to us have an 
almost sacred significance, were, when they were uttered, 
treated by some persons then extant with contempt. Let me 
give you an idea of what certain people, now quite forgotten, 
thought of Washington when he went out of office. On the 
sixth of March, 1797, the leading newspaper of the opposition 
spoke as follows : 

" 'Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace,' was the 
pious ejaculation of a pious man who beheld a flood of happiness rush- 
ing in upon mankind. If ever there was a time that would license the 
reiteration of the ejaculation, that time has now arrived, for the man 
who is the source of all the misfortunes of our country is this day 
reduced to a level with his fellow citizens, and is no longer possessed 
of power to multiply evils upon the United States, If ever there was 
a period for rejoicing, this is the moment. Every heart in unison with 
the freedom and happiness of the people, ought to beat high with 
exultation that the name of Washington ceases from this day to give 
currency to political insults and to legalized corruption. A new era 
is now opening upon us — an era which promises much to the people, 
for public measures must now stand upon their own merits, and ne- 
farious projects can no longer be supported by a name. When a 
retrospect has been taken of the Washington administration for eight 
years, it is a subject of the greatest astonishment that a single individ- 
ual should have cankered the principles of Republicanism in an en- 
lightened people just emerging from the gulf of despotism, and should 
have carried his designs against the public liberty so far as to have 
put in jeopardy its very existence. Such, however, are the facts, and 
with these staring us in the face, the day ought to be a jubilee in the 
United States." 

How strange and unreal this sounds to us who know not 
merely that George Washington led the army of the United 
States to victorj'-, but that his administration established our 
Union and our government, which Lincoln, leading the Amer- 
ican people, was destined to preserve. The myth has grown 
so powerful that it is hard to comprehend that actual living 
men were uttering words like these about George Washington. 

The same feeling in regard to Lincoln began to take form 



C l-OOGt . CMilRMAN 



UNITED STATES SENATE 

committee: on the Philippines 




Faosiuiil,. of Mannsoript Tril.iK,. from Hon. H.-nry Cal.ot Lodf 
I'liitcd States Senator iVoni .\fassarliusct ts 



^i^u-^^ it^ cu yuu^ u-..^ ^;..<,^ ,u^ ^^ 




I';ifsiiiiil(> of Manuscript Triliutc from llev. Lyman T. Abbott, 
Ivlilor of '"riic Outlook" 



THE BOSTON COMMEMORATION 347 

even earlier than in the ease of Washington, The manner of 
his death made men see, as by a flash of lightning, what he 
was and what he has done, even before the grave closed over 
him. Nothing illustrates the violent revulsion of sentiment 
which then occurred better than the verses which appeared 
in "Punch" when the news of his death reached England. 
He had been jeered at, abused, vilified, and caricatured in 
England to a degree which can be understood only by those 
who lived through that time, or who have turned over the 
newspapers and magazines, or read the memoirs and diaries 
of that epoch. In this chorus of abuse "Punch" had not 
lagged behind. Then came the assassination, and then these 
verses by Tom Taylor, written to accompany Tenniel's car- 
toon representing England laying a wreath on Lincoln's bier: 

"Beside this corpse, that bears for winding sheet 
The Stars and Stripes he lived to rear anew. 
Between the mourners at his head and feet, 
Say, scurril jester, is there room for you? 

"Yes, he had lived to shame me from my sneer, 
To lame my pencil and confute my pen; 
To make me own this hind of princes peer, 
This rail-splitter a true born king of men." 

How, at a glance, we see not only the greatness and nobility 
of the man, forcing themselves upon the minds of men, abroad 
as at home, but how keenly these remorseful verses make us 
realize the storm of abuse, of criticism and defamation through 
which he had passed to victory ! 

From that day to this the tide of feeling has swept on, 
until, with Lincoln, as with Washington, we have become 
unable, without a serious effort, to realize the attacks which 
he met, the assaults which were made upon him or the sore 
trials which he had to endure. I would fain show you how 
the actual man, living in those terrible years, met one or 
two of the attacks. 

Lincoln believed that the first step toward the salvation of 
the Union was to limit the area of secession. He wished 
above all things, therefore, to hold in the Union the border 



S48 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

States, as they were then called. If those States were added 
to the Confederacy, the chances of saving the Union would 
have been seriously diminished. In those same States there 
was a strong Union feeling, and a very weak anti-slavery feel- 
ing. If they could be convinced that the controlling purpose 
of the War was to preserve the Union, the chances were that 
they could be held, but if they were made to believe that the 
real object of the War was the abolition of slavery, they would 
probably have been lost. Lincoln, therefore, had checked 
Fremont in issuing orders for the liberation of the slaves, and 
in the first year of the War had done nothing in that direc- 
tion, for reasons which seemed to him good, and which, to 
all men to-day, appear profoundly wise. Abolitionists, and 
extreme anti-slavery men everywhere, were bitterly disap- 
pointed, and a flood of criticism was let loose upon him for 
his attitude in this matter, while at the same time he was 
also denounced by reactionaries, and by the opposition as a 
"Radical" and "Black Republican." Horace Greeley, an 
able editor and an honest man, devoted to the cause of the 
Union, but a lifelong and ardent opponent of slavery, assailed 
the President in The New York Tribune. Here is Lincoln's 
reply : 

"As to the policy I 'seem to be pursuing,' as you say, I have not 
meant to leave anyone in doubt. 

"I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under 
the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored, 
the nearer the Union will be 'the Union as it was.' If there be those 
who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time save 
slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would 
not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy 
slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this 
struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to de- 
stroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, 
I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would 
do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, 
I would also do that. What I do about slavery and the colored race, 
I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, 
I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I 
shall do less whenever I shall believe that what I am doing hurts the 
cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will 



THE BOSTON COMMEMORATION 349 

help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors, 
and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true 
views. 

"I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official 
duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish 
that all men everywhere could be free." 

What a reply that is ! Using his unrivalled power of state- 
ment he sets forth his policy with a force which drives 
opposition helpless before it and renders retort impossible. 
He strips the issue bare of every irrelevant consideration 
and makes it so plain that no one can mistake it. 

This was a ease of specific criticism. There were others of 
a more general nature. A few months after Greeley wrote, 
Lincoln received a letter from Mr. Carl Schurz. Mr. Schurz, 
who has been a familiar figure to the present generation, was 
an able man and a very eloquent and effective speaker, espe- 
cially upon economic subjects. He was also fond of criticising 
other people who were doing work for which they were re- 
sponsible and not he. His system of criticism was a simple 
one. He would depict an ideal President, or Cabinet officer, 
or Senator; put him in an ideal situation, surrounded by 
conditions as they ought to be, and with this imaginary per- 
son, he would then contrast, most unfavorably, the actual 
man who was trying to get results out of conditions which 
were not at all as they ought to be, but which, as a matter of 
fact, actually existed. This method of discussion, of course, 
presented Mr. Schurz in a very admirable light, and gave him 
a great reputation, especially with people who had never been 
called upon to bear any public responsibility at all. When 
Mr. Schurz was in the Cabinet himself he fell easily into the 
class which he criticised, and, naturally, bore no relation to 
the ideal by which he tried other people, but that fact never 
altered the opinion of his greatness entertained by his ad- 
mirers. They liked to hear him find fault pointedly and 
eloquently with their contemporaries, but they forgot or over- 
looked the fact that in the past he had applied his system to 
Lincoln, and in that connection the process seems less con- 
vincing. 



350 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Here is Lincoln 's reply to Mr. Schurz 's criticism : 

"Executive Mansion, Washington, Nov. 24, 1862. 
General Carl Schuhz, 

"Mr Dear Sir: I have just received and read your letter of the 
20th. The inirport of it is, that we lost the late elections, and the ad- 
ministration is failing, because the war is unsuccessful, and that I must 
not flatter myself that I am not justly to blame for it. I certainly 
know that if the war fails, the Administration fails, and that I 
vpill be blamed for it, whether I deserve it or not. And I ought to 
be blamed, if I could do better. You think I could do better; there- 
fore you blame me already. I think I could not do better; therefore 
I blame you for blaming me. I understand you now to be willing 
to accept the help of men who are not Republicans, provided they have 
'heart in it.' Agreed. I want no others. But who is to be the judge 
of hearts, or of 'heart in it'? If I must discard my own judgment and 
take yours, I must also take that of others; and by the time I should 
reject all I should be advised to reject, I should have none left. 
Republicans or others — not even yourself. For be assured, my dear 
eir, there are men who have 'heart in it' that think you are performing 
your part as poorly as you think I am performing mine." 

In these two letters which I have quoted lie great lessons. 
There is not a man to-day, whose judgment would be of any 
value, who does not know that Lincoln, in these instances, was 
absolutely right, and his critics hopelessly and ignorantly 
wrong. They teach us that a great executive officer, dealing 
with the most momentous problems, cannot do everything at 
once; that he must subordinate the lesser to the greater if 
he would not fail entirely ; that he must do the best he can, 
and not lose all by striving vainly for the ideally best. He 
must steer, also, between the radical extremists on the one 
side and the reactionary extremists on the other — no easy 
task, and one which Lincoln performed with a perfection 
rarely seen among men. Lincoln could have said, with abso- 
lute truth, as Seneca's Pilot says, in Montaigne's paraphrase: 

"Oh, Neptune, thou mayest save me if thou wilt; thou mayest sink 
me if thou wilt; but whatever may befall I shall hold my tiller 
true." 

As we look at this correspondence, and see how Lincoln 
was criticised by able men on a point where the judgment of 



THE BOSTON COMMEMORATION 351 

events and of history alike has gone wholly in his favor, is 
it not well for us, before passing hasty judgment and indulg- 
ing in quick condemnation, to reflect that the man charged with 
great public duties may have a knowledge of conditions and 
possess sources of information which are not known to the 
world, or even to those who criticise ? Both for men in public 
life, and for those who criticise these men, I think this corre- 
spondence contains many lessons in conduct and character 
which, if taken to heart, will make the public service better 
and the judgment of the onlooker less hasty. 

The thought and the admonition which these glimpses of 
the past bring to us, have been put into noble verse by a poet 
of our own day, and it is to the poet that we must always 
turn for the best expression of what we try to say with the 
faltering words of prose : 

"A flying word from here and there, 

Had sown the name at which we sneered, 
But soon the name was everywhere, 

To be reviled and then revered: 
A presence to be loved and feared. 

We cannot hide it or deny 
That we, the gentlemen who jeered. 

May be forgotten by and by." 

Consider, also, the result. Lincoln's paramount purpose 
was to save the Union, and he saved it. His critics thought 
he was sacrificing the anti-slavery cause. He thought other- 
wise, and he was right. At the accepted time he emancipated 
the slaves and signed the death warrant of human slavery. 
Had he struck at the wrong moment he might have ruined the 
Union cause and thereby left the slaves in bondage. He was 
a great statesman, and he knew all the conditions, not merely 
a part of them. He therefore succeeded where his critics 
would have failed. 

Turn now from the difficulties and the criticisms with which 
Lincoln contended upon his own side, and which surrounded 
him like a network, through which he had to cut or break his 
way as best he might, and look with me for a moment at the 
force with which he was doing battle, and see whether we can 



352 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

also find a lesson there. Lincoln's purpose was to save the 
Union; the object of those with whom he fought was to 
destroy it. I am not going to waste time upon that emptiest 
of all questions, whether the States had the right, under the 
Constitution, to secede. The purpose of the Constitution, if it 
had meaning or purpose, was to make a nation out of jarring 
States, and that it had succeeded in doing so was stated by 
[Webster, once and for all, when he replied to Hayne in the 
greatest speech ever made in the Senate. Secession was the 
destruction of the Union, whether the Constitution provided 
for such a contradiction as the right of secession or not. 
Secession was revolution, and revolution is not to be stopped, 
or to be provided for, by paper constitutions. This particular 
revolution, however, found its reason and its excuse in the 
doctrine of State rights. Under cover of maintaining the 
rights of States, the Union was to be destroyed. On this 
issue the War was fought out. The Union was victorious, 
and the rights of States emerged from the conflict beaten and 
discredited. The result brought with it a new danger in the 
direction of a disproportionate growth in the power of the 
central government, and this peril the fanatics of State 
rights, and no one else, had brought upon themselves and 
upon the country. In the first public speech which I ever 
delivered — some thirty years ago, alas! — I said: 

. . . "The principle of State rights is as vital and essential as 
the national principle itself. If the former, carried to extremes, means 
anarchy, the latter, carried to like extremes, means centralization and 
despotism. 

"Two lessons are clearly written on the pages which record the 
strife between the inborn love of local independence and the broader 
spirit of nationality created by the Constitution. One is reverence 
for the Constitution; the other, a careful maintenance of the principle 
of State rights." 

To these general views I have always adhered, and I repeat 
them now because I do not wish to be misunderstood in what 
I am about to say in regard to State rights at the present 
time. The subject is one of deep importance and ought never 
to be neglected. The growth in power of the central govern- 
ment is inevitable, because it goes hand in hand with the 



THE BOSTON COMMEMORATION 353 

growth of the country. There is no danger that this move- 
ment will be too slow; there is danger that it will be too 
rapid and too extensive. The strength of our American sys- 
tem resides in the fact that we have a Union of States, that 
we are neither a weak and chaotic confederation, nor one 
highly centralized government. It is of the highest impor- 
tance that the States should be maintained in all their proper 
rights, and the Constitution scrupulously observed, but when 
the Constitution is thrust forward every day, on every oc- 
casion, serious and trivial alike, whether applicable or inap- 
plicable, and for mere purposes of obstruction, the govern- 
ment of the Union is not injured, but the Constitution is 
brought into contempt, and the profound respect which we 
all should feel for that great instrument is impaired. In 
the same way, the rights of the States — the true rights — are 
again in danger at this time, not from those who would 
trench upon them, but from those who abuse them, as did 
the advocates of secession. Nothing can accelerate the growth 
of the national power to an unwholesome degree so much as 
the failure of the States, from local or selfish motives, to do 
their part in the promotion of measures which the good of 
the whole people, without respect to State lines, demands. 
No such reproach, as far as I am aware, lies at the door of 
Massachusetts. The President of the United States has said, 
not once but many times, that if every State had adopted 
corporation and railroad laws like those of Massachusetts 
there would have been no need of much of that national rail- 
road legislation which he has advised, and which has been 
largely enacted. He has also said, in regard to our laws 
relating to health, that if every State had the same system 
there would have been but little need of the Pure Food Act. 
There are other States which have a record like that of ]\Ias- 
sachusetts in these directions, but there are many which have 
not. The result of this neglect, and of local selfishness, has 
been national legislation and a great extension of the national 
power, brought on directly either by the failure of the States 
to act, or by thrusting State interests and State rights across 
the path of progress. 



354> ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Take another and far more serious phase of this same 
question. We can deal with foreign nations only through the 
United States, By the Constitution, a treaty is the supreme 
law of the land. No State can make a treaty, and yet a 
treaty is worthless if any State in the Union can disregard 
it at pleasure. The people of the United States will not long 
suffer their foreign relations to be imperilled, nor permit the 
peace of the country to be put in jeopardy, because some one 
State does not choose to submit to the action of the general 
government in a matter with which the general government 
alone can deal. They will not permit a Legislature or a City 
Council to disregard treaties and endanger our relations with 
other countries. Those who force State rights into our for- 
eign relations, will eventually bring on a situation from which 
those rights will emerge as broken and discredited as they 
did from the Civil War. They were the enemy, powerful in 
their influence upon the minds of men, with which Lincoln 
grappled, and which he finally overthrew. The danger to 
the rights of States does not arise now, any more than it 
did in 1861, from the incursions of the national government, 
but from the follies of those who try to use them as a cover 
for resistance to the general government in the execution of 
the duties committed to it. Congress alone can declare war. 
The President and the Senate alone can make peace. It is 
not to be tolerated that one or two States shall assert the 
power to force the country into war to gratify their own 
prejudices. Their rights will be protected by the general 
government sedulously and fearlessly, but if they venture to 
usurp or to deride the national authority they will be forced 
to yield to the power of the Union, and the State rights which 
they have wrongly invoked, and their indifference to the in- 
terests of the nation, will meet the punishment they deserve. 
The day has passed when one State, or a few States, could in- 
terfere with the government of the Union in its own field. 
Lincoln smote down that baleful theory when he crushed se- 
cession and saved the Union. But if we are wise, it is to the 
States themselves that we ought to look for the preservation 
of the rights of the States, which are so essential to our 



THE BOSTON COMMEMORATION 355 

system of government, and the States can preserve their 
rights only by doing their duty individually in regard to 
measures with which the welfare of the people of all the 
States is bound up, and by not seeking to thwart the general 
government in the performance of the high functions en- 
trusted to it by the Constitution. If the advocates of the 
extreme doctrines of State rights use them not for the pro- 
tection of local self-government, but to promote selfish in- 
terests hostile to the general welfare, or still more to embarrass 
and paralyze the national government in the performance 
of the duties for which it was created, the people will not 
endure it, and State rights will be unduly weakened, if not 
swept away — a result greatly to be deplored. 

In the Civil War the fighting champions of State rights 
bound them up with the cause of slavery, which was not only 
an evil and a wrong, but which was a gross anachronism — 
a stumbling block in the onward march of the Republic. 
They and their allies, the Copperheads, the Southern sympa- 
thizers, and the timid commercialism of the North, proclaimed 
that they were conservatives, and denounced Lincoln as a 
revolutionist. "Radical," "Black Republican," "tyrant," 
were among the mildest of the epithets they heaped upon him. 
Yet the reality was the exact reverse of this. Lincoln was 
the true conservative, and he gave his life to preserve and con- 
struct, not to change and destroy. 

The men who sought to rend the Union asunder in order 
to shelter slavery beneath State rights, the reactionaries who 
set themselves against the march of human liberty, were the 
real revolutionists. Lincoln's policy was to secure progress 
and right by the limitation and extinction of slavery, but 
his mission was to preserve and maintain the Union. He 
sought to save and to create, not to destroy, and yet he 
wrought at the same time the greatest reform ever accom- 
plished in the history of the nation. Let us learn from him 
that reaction is not conservatism, and that violent change and 
the abandonment of the traditions and principles which have 
made us great is not progress, but revolution and confusion. 

One word upon one other text and I have done. In Au- 



356 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

gust, 1864, Lincoln one morning asked his Cabinet to sign 
their names on the back of a sealed and folded paper. After 
the election, in the following November, he opened the paper 
in the presence of his Cabinet, and these words were found 
written therein : 

"Executive Mansion, Washington, August 23, 1864. 
"This morning, as for some days past, it seems exceedingly probable 
that this administration will not be reelected. Then it will be my 
duty to so cooperate with the President-elect as to save the Union 
between the election and the inauguration; as he will have secured his 
election on such gi'ound that he cannot possibly save it afterward. 

"A. Lincoln." 

"Was there ever a nobler patriotism shown by any man 
than is contained in those few lines? What utter forgetful- 
ness of self, what devotion to the country do they reveal ! 
Then, as at the beginning, we see him driving straight for- 
ward to his one mighty purpose — the salvation of the Union. 
No criticism, no personal defeat, nothing could change that 
great intent. There, indeed, is a lesson to be learned and 
to be repeated from day to day. We none of us can be an 
Abraham Lincoln, but we all can try to follow in his footsteps. 
If we do so, the country will rise to ever new heights, as he 
would fain have had it. 

That nation has not lived in vain which has given to the 
world Washington and Lincoln — the best great men, and the 
greatest good men, whom history can show. But if we content 
ourselves with eulogy, and neglect the teaching of their lives, 
we are unworthy of the heritage they have left us. To us 
they offer lofty ideals to which we may not, perhaps cannot, 
attain; but it is only by aiming at ideals which are ne>^er 
reached that the great victories on earth are won. Yet, when 
all is said, it is not Lincoln's patient wisdom, his undaunted 
courage, his large abilities that should really sink deepest 
into our hearts and minds to-day. Touch, if you can, as 
he touched, the "mystic chords of memory." Think of that 
noble character, that unwearied devotion to his country, that 
gentle heart which went out in sympathy to all his people. 
No one can recall all this and not feel that he is lifted up 



THE BOSTON COMMEMORATION S57 

and made better. Remember him as he lay dying, having 
offered up the last great sacrifice on the altar of his country. 
Then, indeed, you feel his greatness, and you cry out, in the 
words of Bnnyan, "So Valiant-for-Truth passed over, and all 
the trumpets sounded for him on the other side." 



THE CINCINNATI COMMEMORATION 



THE CINCINNATI COMMEMORATION 

AT Cincinnati, preparations for the celebration began as 
far in advance as October, 1908, when, at a meeting of 
the Cincinnati Schoolmasters' Club, it was suggested that steps 
be taken to properly observe the Lincoln Centenary. A Com- 
mittee was appointed by President E. D. Lyon to confer with 
the various civic, business, educational, and other bodies of 
the city. At the conference held to form the plans, there were 
present representatives from over fifty organizations. This 
joint conference formed an organization, and adopted the 
name "The Lincoln Centenary Memorial Association," and 
under its auspices, with Mr. W. C. Washburn as the able Presi- 
dent, the Centenary celebration was planned and carried out. 
The funds necessary for carrying out the elaborate plans of 
the Association were provided by the organizations represented 
in its membership. 

On the Centenary day, memorial exercises were held in all 
the schools ; and special exercises were held by order of Arch- 
bishop Moeller in the Catholic parochial schools of the Cin- 
cinnati diocese ; all the municipal buildings, and many of the 
business houses, were fittingly decorated, and the whole at- 
mosphere of the city breathed the spirit of tribute and com- 
memoration. 

The principal meeting of the day was held in Music Hall, 
in the afternoon. At two o'clock members of the Grand Army 
of the Republic, four hundred strong, marched to the hall 
and took seats in the section especially reserved for them. 
Dr. J. M. Withrow, President of the Board of Education, pre- 
sided, and a choir of seven hundred and fifty school children, 
accompanied by an orchestra of fifty pieces, rendered the pa- 
triotic airs and War-time melodies which have come down to 
us from the day of Lincoln. One of the special features was 
an ode — "Our Lincoln"— by W. C. Washburn, rendered by 
this children's choir, under the direction of Professor Joseph 

361 



362 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Surdo, composer of the music. The orator of the day was 
Bishop William Fraser McDowell, of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church of Chicago, who delivered to an enthusiastic audience, 
"An Appreciation of Lincoln." 

In the evening, members of the Loyal Legion gave a ban- 
quet, with commemorative exercises, in their quarters at Ma- 
sonic Hall, where Judge Frederick A. Henry, of Cleveland, 
acted as the speaker of the occasion. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN — AN APPRECIATION 

BISHOP WILLIAM F. MC DOM^ELL 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN was an American product. The 
world itself has seen nothing finer. America has not 
done it twice. When one speaks of Lincoln he speaks of 
something that only happened once. He is one of the sur- 
prises of history. No land but America has produced his 
like. When he was born, a hundred years ago, we had about 
seven millions of people. When he died, forty-four years 
ago, we had thirty-five millions of people. To-day we number 
ninety millions. 

Those who knew Lincoln are few in number now, but he 
is enshrined in the nation's heart as no one else is. He died 
at the end of a civil war whose passions were bitter, whose 
bitterness is not wholly gone, but we can honor this leader 
of that war without awakening bitterness anywhere. His 
name is the symbol of peace, his character an inspiration to 
union, his life a perpetual call to charity and fraternity. 

That life began in Kentucky, continued in Indiana and 
Illinois, and flowered out in splendor at last upon the nation 
and the nations. His parents were so poor that life was all 
they could give their son; so poor that they could give the 
world nothing except their son. We praise him to-day, but 
can not forget his mother, Nancy Hanks — 



THE CINCINNATI COMMEMORATION 363 

"O soul obscure, 

Whose wings life bound, 
And soft death folded 
Under the ground; 

"Wilding lady, 
Still and true, 
Who gave us Lincoln 
And never knew; 

"To you at last 

Our praise and tears. 
Love and a song 
Through the nation's years! 

"Mother of Lincoln, 

Our tears, our praise; 
A battle flag 

And the victor's bays!" 

Abraham Lincoln was not a youthful prodigy. He was 
neither precocious nor angelic. He had neither luck nor cir- 
cumstance in his favor. He had as poor a chance as ever 
greeted a boy under our flag. It was not a fair chance. He 
made it turn out right. He did not complain of luck, or seek 
excuses for failure. He put his foot on adversity and rose 
to opportunity. There were not many books in all that 
region. He read them all. There was not much going on. 
He got into contact with every sign of life about him, whether 
it was Circuit Court or country store. He had five school 
teachers, and went to school less than a year. But all his 
life he had the long arms of his mind out in every direction 
for information, and "he never finished his education." He 
did not know what many others know, but he knew what 
he knew, and was not uneducated. He mastered a limited 
list of books. The Son of the Nazareth carpenter, like the 
son of the Kentucky carpenter, had one small collection of 
books, but from them he got a training in literature, in his- 
tory, in insight, in patriotism, and in religion. The son of 
the Kentucky carpenter had a small list — ^Esop's "Fables," 



364, ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

"Robinson Crusoe," the ** Revised Statutes of Indiana," 
Pilgrim's Progress," Parson Weems' ''Life of Washing- 
ton," The Bible, Shakespeare, and a "History of the United 
States." And these he read by day and night, with a slow 
mind but a sure one — a mind he declared to be like steel, hard 
to scratch but retaining every scratch made upon it. And 
from these books he got a training in literature, in history, 
in philosophy, in patriotism, and in religion. Such a man 
is educated. 

He was not divinely gifted nor inspired. He was just an 
American boy, born in poverty, in a locality where life was 
hard and meagre; and without genius he rose to the heights 
by hard work. Poverty did not do it. Anyhow, poverty has 
never done it again. Ancestry did not do it. Hardships 
did not do it. He did not learn the language of the Gettys- 
burg Speech at the country stores of Indiana or Illinois. 

"The little farm that raised a man, was not enchanted 
ground." Circumstances neither created him nor hindered 
him from working out his life. He did what any American 
boy can do, ought to do — made the most of life's chance. 

He came into the world with a great company. Lowell 
once declared that the sixteenth century was spendthrift of 
genius, that any family might expect an attack of greatness 
as it looked for measles and whooping cough. "Hamlet," 
Newton's "Principia," Bacon's "Novum Organum," were all 
in danger of teething at once. The single year 1809 was prod- 
igal to the point of recklessness in producing great men. 
That year saw the birth of Oliver Wendell Holmes, William 
E. Gladstone, Charles Darwin, Mendelssohn, and Abraham 
Lincoln. It must have seemed a strange planet that had 
on it, at the same time, Napoleon Bonaparte and Abraham 
Lincoln. 

Compared with the great men of his time or the great men 
of all time, Lincoln does not suffer or grow small. Washing- 
ton was rich; Lincoln was poor. Both nobly served the Re- 
public and freedom, showing at two supreme crises how the 
country can be greatly served by rich and poor alike. Wash- 
ington piloted the young Republic through its first days. 



THE CINCINNATI COMMEMORATION 365 

Lincoln through the days of its fiercest testing. One pushed 
the door of liberty ajar, the other opened it wide and "saved 
the last best hope of earth." One led the colonies to the 
Declaration of Independence, the other fulfilled that early 
declaration by these immortal words, "In giving freedom to 
the slave we assure freedom to the free." One set a nation 
out on its wide way among nations. The other taught us 
that a nation worth creating is worth saving, and worth sav- 
ing all the time. Of each it can be said, "His palms never 
itched for a bribe, his tongue never blistered with a lie." 
Each came when he was needed, and each met the need fully. 
Need alone does not produce such men. Barrenness, want, 
selfishness, or ambition can not bring to a nation men like 
these. Washington rose not because our fathers needed a 
soldier who could win battles, but because the colonies needed 
a man of truth and tranquillity, "a standard to w^hich the 
wise and just should repair." Lincoln arose, not because 
our later fathers needed a debater, but because they needed 
a truth teller; not because they needed a conqueror, but be- 
cause they needed one to whom peace was a sacrament and 
mercy a divine force; not because they needed a man who 
could win an election or finance a war, but because they did 
sorely need in a day of strife one who could show "charity 
for all and malice to none." 

Thus William of Orange arose in the Dutch Republic, 
Washington and Lincoln in the American Republic, each of 
them "tranquil in the midst of raging billows." 

Measured by any of the real tests, our Abraham, friend of 
God like the old Abraham, appears to be one of the mightiest 
figures seen in a thousand years. He was a real leader of 
men — not a tyrant driving them, nor a weakling following 
them, nor a visionary getting out of touch with them. He 
perfectly knew the average mind and the strong mind. He 
knew how valuable were men like Seward, and Stanton, and 
Chase, and many others who did not agree with him. Many 
strong men abused him, many tried to override him. He 
was silent under abuse and always master of his own soul and 
his own policies. Men said his clothes did not fit him, that 



366 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

he did not know what to do with his hands, but they learned 
at last that his mind fitted him perfectly, and he used his 
hands for his supreme tasks. 

We are obliged to go back to the Bible for the words to 
describe him, "He was a shepherd who had led his flock ac- 
cording to the integrity of his heart, and guided them by the 
skilfulness of his hands." He kept in close touch with the 
common people, and kept ahead of them. He kept in touch 
and moved on. He used all the strong men in all parties, 
and was used by none of them. He has been called by one 
biographer, "The Master of Men." But never was any man 
less of a tyrant. His mastery was due to that gentleness 
which made him great. He could neither be a tyrant nor a 
tool, a slave driver nor a slave. He led, not because he wanted 
to be served, but because he wanted to serve. His secrets 
were few because his purposes were great. Without arro- 
gance, without vanity, with eternal charity, and without 
malice, as God gave him to see the right, he held on his steady 
way. Men were impatient; his Cabinet was vexed; he was 
assailed by the radicals and by his compromisers; he endured 
the storms of ridicule, of slander, of scorn ; insult and ac- 
cusation were heaped upon him like a mountain ; news from 
the front broke his heart, scramble for spoils cursed his days; 
he lived through passion and prejudice, relieving his mel- 
ancholy soul with stories that brought more criticism, and 
at last "he heard the hisses turn to cheers" and stood alone 
in a glory no man could endure. 

He had a genius for stating eternal matters in such a way 
that men felt as under a call to battle. Away yonder on 
the plains of Palestine, the saddest man of history declared 
that a "house divided against itself shall not stand." Long 
afterward, on the plains of Illinois, this Lincoln reached back 
to that other's word and said: "A house divided against 
itself can not stand. I believe this government can not per- 
manently endure half slave and half free." Friends urged 
him not to say it. It was too clear, too plain and unmis- 
takable. It was not good politics to say it. But Lincoln 
replied, "It is true, and I will deliver it as written." There 




(■iipiiriijlil. /•niH,-/> Ttunltj i<,mi„uiii. Si-u- Ym-k 



Tlic PctiTsoii IIoiKi', in wliicli Lincoln Dinl. \V;isiiini:;l()n, \^. C. 



THE CINCINNATI COMMEMORATION 367 

never was any answer to it. It became a standard to which 
men rallied. And truth appeared the best politics. Mr. In- 
gersoll calls this "a victorious truth whose utterance made 
Lincoln the foremost man in the Republic." That sentence 
stated the clear principle. On that he will not compromise, 
but on all the minor matters he will be yielding and con- 
ciliatory — and always go ahead. 

He summarized the Dred Scott decision in the fierce words, 
"If any one man choose to enslave another, no third man shall 
be allowed to object!" "The central idea of secession is the 
essence of anarchy," was another rifle shot in his First In- 
augural. 

At no time did he satisfy the extremists on either side. 
Many times he was thought to be drifting and without a 
policy. He was not omniscient. Only a few men are. But 
it is an unspeakable mercy that this man was willing to learn 
from current events, to use his discretion according to cir- 
cumstances actually existing ; that the only consistency he had 
was the consistency of principle, and he would find his goal 
by any path he could. And his own eye was so single that at 
last the whole body was full of light. 

In two crucial respects he stands nearly alone — in his 
power to keep still, and his power to speak. We are a speak- 
ing people. Good talkers are always at a premium with us. 
Nowhere else is the right word more effective than in a 
Republic. And Lincoln had the national gift, as we shall 
see. But in certain supreme crises the final test is not only 
what a man says, but what he refrains from saying. 

A civil war does not develop careful and dainty speech. 
Men — and women — on both sides incline to invective and 
vitriol. Our Abolitionists knew a lot of hard words. The 
South did not measure its terms by the rule of gentleness. 
When there was nothing else men could do, they pitched into 
Lincoln. Men here, who were boys then, heard him called 
by all the names that were bad. I have always been wanting 
to atone to him for the names I heard him called in my 
youth. 

Not only so, but the North and the South were abusing 



368 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

each other. "Kebel" and "traitor" were about the gentlest 
terms we used. And it was a talking time. But in all that 
flood of acrimonious speech, not one word of malice escaped 
his lips. He was reviled and slandered, but ''as a sheep 
before her shearer is dumb, so he opened not his mouth." 
Other men stung and goaded him, but he replied only in 
some quaint story that acted like oil where others used acids. 
And in all the forty-four years since "the lilacs bloomed" 
as he died, we have not had to take back one word of bitter- 
ness toward the South, or pull out one sentence from fes- 
tering sore. He won a victory over the South, and is to-day 
our strongest appeal to the South. "His entire administra- 
tion was one protracted magnanimity. He was as great in 
his forbearance as in his performances." 

But what shall be said of his power to speak? His silence 
and his speech alike were golden. Men were scared when 
he began the debates with Douglas, for Douglas was indeed 
a "Little Giant." When the debates were over, the air was 
cleared for a thousand years. Douglas won the senatorship, 
but Lincoln won the shining victory for truth. An old man 
said, "You always felt that Abe was right." "I am not 
bound to win," he said, "but I am bound to be true." So 
"he did not say the thing which was best for that day's de- 
bate, but the thing that would stand the test of time and 
square itself with eternal justice." 

Gladstone, born the same year as Lincoln, was the speaking 
marvel of England during many years. British oratory has 
hardly ever been richer or nobler than his. He was educated 
at Oxford. All that culture could do had been done for him ; 
but his supporters declare that he has left not a single mas- 
terpiece of English, and hardly one great phrase that clings 
to the memory of men. Lincoln has given a new meaning 
to oratory and a new dignity to public speech. His utter- 
ances have the quality of finality. George William Curtis 
declares that there are three supreme speeches in our history : 
"The speech of Patrick Henry at Williamsburg, of Wendell 
Phillips in Faneuil Hall, of Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg 
— three, and there is no fourth. ' ' I think there was a fourth 



THE CINCINNATI COMMEMORATION 369 

— Lincoln's Second Inaugural. He gave a new and embar- 
rassing definition to the words "principal address." At 
Gettysburg, Edward Everett spoke magnificently through 
many thousand noble words — a masterly oration. Lincoln 
spoke three minutes, two hundred and fifty words, and this is 
the principal address of that day or many days. The Second 
Inaugural is only seven hundred and fifty words in length, 
but while liberty lasts, while charity survives among men, 
while patriotism lives under any flag, these few words will 
be on men's lips like prophecy, psalm or gospel. How did 
this man, born in poverty, reared in poverty, untrained in 
any schools, come to do this miracle? It is not a trick of 
expression, it is the miracle of supreme truth, supremely 
stated. "Back of the orator is the man." Behind the match- 
less President is the matchless personality. 

He had the faith that saves, without the bigotry that 
blights. He had insight like a prophet's, a sense of the Al- 
mighty Person like a mystic's; no theology, but the life of 
the spirit; an unwavering belief in the Providence that was 
often silent and perplexing; moral courage born of moral 
conviction ; a sense that right is right, since God is God ; 
a devotion that planted a cross in his heart; a trust that 
kept his hands clean and his heart pure. "When he called 
the Cabinet to hear the Emancipation Proclamation, they 
found him reading a chapter from Artemus Ward. He said, 
"I made the promise to myself and to my Maker that I would 
do this. I do not wish your advice about the main matter, 
for that I have determined for myself" — and read the im- 
mortal document which freed the slave. His sense of des- 
tiny was not fatalism, but faith. He thought of himself and 
the nation as in the guiding care of God. He thought more 
of his duties than of his rights, more of his burdens than of 
his honors. He incarnated the simplest and greatest virtues. 
He was above all a man of truth. "I am nothing, truth is 
everything." His life did not belie the language of his lips. 
"Whatever appears to be God's will, I will do it." And he 
put the loftiest at the service of the lowliest. 

I know what I am saying, and must not be betrayed into 
24 



S70 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

extravagance, but I can not refrain from saying, that of 
Abraham Lincoln, more than of any merely human man of 
history, are certain inspired words true ; to him, more than 
any other save One, are they to be applied: "He was a man 
of sorrows and acquainted with grief. " " We hid, as it were, 
our faces from him. " " He trod the winepress alone. " " The 
chastisement of our peace was upon him." "He saved others, 
himself he could not save." "The common people heard 
him gladly." "The government shall be upon his shoulders. 
His name shall be called Wonderful" — and, after war — "the 
Prince of Peace." 

He was murdered on Good Friday, and, as when William of 
Orange was slain, "the little children wept in the streets." 

It is not for us to mourn that we have lost Lincoln, for he 
is our finest inspiration and "gentlest memory" forever. It 
is rather for us to be glad that we have had and still have 
him. The mention of his name makes poverty look less odious 
and depressing. The story of his life is enough to make any 
youth under the flag put his feet upon difficulties and hard- 
ships in a royal purpose to rise above them all. The picture 
of his character should call us again to the love and practice 
of those simple, majestic virtues of which Lincoln was the 
living definition. A thousand things we can live without, 
but we cannot live without truth and honesty, courage and 
kindness, self-denial and patriotism, faith and charity, liberty 
and law. In the face of an old conservatism and a dangerous 
radicalism we need again the truth and independence of 
this tall rail-splitter, leader of the sons of men. In the face 
of greed and graft we need to learn again that a good name 
like Lincoln's is infinitely better than any riches, however 
great. 

Once in the darkest days of the War, after many defeats 
for our armies, one of our poets addressed Lincoln in a 
poem called, "Abraham Lincoln, give us a man." This 
still is America's call to manhood and youth. "The youth 
of a nation are the trustees of posterity." "It is a glorious 
thing to see a nation saved by its youth." It is our high 
chance to show whence we have sprung; ours to add to Lin- 



THE CINCINNATI COMMEMORATION 371 

coin's glory by carrying his work forward to perfection; 
ours to make a new Republic in which all men shall have 
life's fair chance; a Republic in which no one shall be a 
tyrant and no one a slave ; a Republic in which poverty shall 
be full of hope and wealth full of modesty; a Republic in 
which the color of the skin shall not make men forget the 
color of the blood; a Republic which shall not be a white 
man's land or a black man's land but all men's home; a 
Republic in which there is always a new birth of freedom ; 
a Republic true to the son of Kentucky grown large, true 
to the undivided house, true to both Inaugurals, true to 
the Emancipation Proclamation, true to the Gettysburg Ad- 
dress, true to Abraham Lincoln — finest product of a new 
nation, foremost citizen of the world, friend of God, liberator 
of humanity, tallest white angel of a thousand years ! 



THE ROCHESTER COMMEMORATION 



THE EOCHESTER COMMEMORATION 

THROUGHOUT the State of New York celebrations were 
held in the various cities, but one which attracted wide- 
spread attention was that at Rochester, where His Excellency, 
Hon. Charles E. Hughes, Governor of the State of New York, 
was the speaker of the occasion. 



LINCOLN: THE TRUE AMERICAN 

HON. CHARLES EVANS HUGHES 

ON the twenty-third day of August, 1864, Abraham Lin- 
coln, President of the United States, penned these 
words, which he laid aside for future reference, "This morn- 
ing, as for some days past, it seems exceedingly probable 
that this administration will not be reelected, ' ' 

It was within eight months of the close of a career which 
has made his memory a priceless treasure of the nation. He 
had risen from the humblest conditions to the highest place 
of influence and power. For three years and a half he had 
borne the awful burdens of leadership in the struggle to 
preserve the Union. He had proclaimed the emancipation 
of the slaves, and delivered the immortal Address at Gettys- 
burg. The logic of events had demanded his renomination 
for the presidency, and as yet the candidate of the opposing 
party had not been named. Yet in those dark days of the 
Summer of 1864, it seemed that he would be buried under 
an avalanche of hostile criticism. He was misconstrued, 
maligned, and reviled. He was charged both with weakness 
and with usurpation. It was his painful lot to bear the 
heavy assault, not simply of the enemies of his armies or 
their sympathizers, but of sincere and high-minded men who 
should have been his stoutest supporters. He later described 

375 



376 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

those days to his Cabinet as a time "when as yet we had no 
adversary and seemed to have no friends." The most astute 
advisers told him that his reelection was an impossibility, 
and it appeared as if the American people were to write the 
word "failure" over the administration which gives to the 
day we now celebrate its undying significance. 

It was precisely at that hour of uncertainty and fore- 
boding, that Lincoln displayed the finest qualities of his 
character. Unshaken in conviction, secure in the peace of an 
undisturbed conscience, he looked into the future with a 
keen and honest eye, and resolved that even were he sub- 
jected to humiliation and defeat, even were he scorned and 
thrust aside by those for whom he had so severely labored, 
yet, if he could, he would still save the Union. In the pri- 
vate memorandum of that August day, the opening words of 
which I have already quoted, he thus registered this deter- 
mination, "Then it will be my duty to so cooperate with the 
President-elect as to save the Union between the election 
and the inauguration ; as he will have secured his election on 
such grounds that he cannot possibly save it afterwards." 

This is the Lincoln whom we honor to-day! — not the Com- 
mander-in-chief of a victorious army; not the triumphant 
political leader; not the master of debate, or the inspired 
orator, but the hero of patriotic self-sacrifice, the great-souled 
servant of the people. 

The story of Lincoln's rise will ever be the finest inspira- 
tion of American youth. The surroundings of his early life 
were not only obscure, but depressing and disheartening. 
It was not simply that he was the child of poverty — that 
may be a blessing. The real deprivation was not in the 
rudeness of the home or in the lowliness of the estate, but in 
the lack of those incentives to endeavor, and stimuli to am- 
bition, which are the heritage of most of our American boys. 

Lincoln was not without opportunity. The event proves 
that. And the glory of his career is that he so nobly used 
each opportunity that he had, and made it provide another. 
The marvel is that he was not a victim to inertia; and that, 
in such conditions, may be found such talent and such dis- 



THE ROCHESTER COMMEMORATION 377 

position to use it. With each review of his career we renew 
our confidence in humanity and pledge our faith, not to 
circumstance or station, but to the divine fire of reason, and 
truth, and conscience, constantly flaming out in unsuspected 
places — which the Power that makes for righteousness and 
progress will not permit to be quenched. 

Lincoln performed each task as well as he knew. As a 
boy he learned to write, and he did it so well that he became 
the favored scribe of an imlettered community. He had 
access to but few books, but instead of neglecting these be- 
cause they were few, he mastered them, and he became rich 
in the strength of their wisdom. He was willing to give his 
day's labor to secure a coveted "Life of Washington." He 
had little schooling and none of the advantages of academy 
or college. But he seized what was within his reach, and 
the fact that for a time he was denied, made his pursuit the 
more eager. And so he was constantly growing and develop- 
ing, with a sense of power which comes by the exercise of 
the will in constant achievement. That part of our educa- 
tional methods is really worth while which develops the sense 
of intellectual conquest, and Lincoln, from his early years, 
despite his apparent disadvantages, had a fine curriculum 
of victories. 

He was nourished in patriotism, learning at the feet of 
Washington. As soon as there was opportunity he enlisted, 
and reenlisted, to protect the safety of the State, in the 
Black Hawk War. When he returned, he went into politics. 

According to the practice of the time, Lincoln became a 
candidate for the Assembly by simply announcing his condi- 
dacy and declaring his principles. He was defeated in his 
first campaign, and, turning to the simple activities of a 
village life, he devoted himself more earnestly than ever 
to the increase of his store of knowledge. He had acquired 
no little information as to men and affairs; and his earlier 
trips, by boat to New Orleans, and his experiences in the 
Black Hawk War, had widened his horizon. In 1854, Lin- 
coln was again a candidate for the Legislature, and was 
elected by a large majority. He was reelected in 1836, 1838, 



378 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

and again in 1840. Meanwhile he had been encouraged to 
study law, and in 1836 was admitted to the bar. His great 
adversary, Douglas, said of him, "Lincoln is one of those 
peculiar men who perform with admirable skill everything 
they undertake." But he was peculiarly fitted for the bar. 
His keenness and analytical precision, his good humor and 
democratic ease, his passion for study, and his rugged hon- 
esty, equipped him for high place in a profession whose best 
prizes are not won by those who are mere masters of chicane. 

It is said that he left the Legislature in 1840 with the 
reputation of being "the ablest man in it, the recognized 
leader of his party in the House and in his State," and 
"with a reputation for honesty and integrity which not even 
the bitterest of his political opponents had the hardihood to 
asperse." He rose rapidly at the bar and particularly ex- 
celled in the arts of advocacy. Meanwhile he was not with- 
out his disappointments. As he failed in his first candidacy 
for the State Assembly, he also failed in his first candidacy 
for Congress, but was elected to Congress in 1846. Retiring 
after his first term, he devoted himself to his legal practice. 
But he was equipped and destined for political activity. 

The discussion of the great questions which related to the 
extension of slavery furnished the opportunity, and soon he 
became the protagonist in the debate which challenged the 
attention of the country and marked him as a national 
leader. His nomination and election to the presidency were 
the natural result of the contest in which, although Douglas 
through the apportionment of districts won his election to 
the Senate, Lincoln had the best of the argiunent, and the 
prestige of popular victory. Thus he was elected not to hon- 
ors, but to burdens. And from his accession to the highest 
place in the people's gift, to the time when he laid down his 
life a martyr to the cause of liberty and union — at last one 
and inseparable — he bore a weight of care and responsibility 
greater than that borne by any other President, and for which 
it would be difficult to find a parallel in history. 

There is no day so eloquent to me as the day on which we 
commemorate the birth of Lincoln. In him we recognize the 



THE ROCHESTER COMMEMORATION 379 

representative of those qualities which distinguish American 
character and are the sources of our national power. Lincoln 
is the true American. 

Abraham Lincoln was an acute man. But we erect no 
monuments to shrewdness. "We set aside no days for the 
commemoration of mere American smartness. Skill in manip- 
ulation, acuteness in dealing for selfish purposes, may win 
their temporary victories. But the people reserve their 
memorials for the ability that finds its highest display in 
unselfish devotion to the public good. 

Lincoln was an expert logician. He brought to bear upon 
his opponents the batteries of remorseless logic. But he 
thought honestly and scorned the tricks of sophistry. He 
had a profound confidence in the reasoning judgment of the 
American people. He disdained all efforts to capture the 
populace by other means, or to employ his great talents in 
other than fair disputation. He treated opposing arguments 
with an extraordinary power of analysis. He eviscerated 
the subject of discussion and laid it bare. He presented not 
abuse, not appeal to the emotions of the multitude, but cogent 
reasoning, and thus appeared before the American people 
representing their ideal of straightforward, honest repre- 
sentation of the truth, applicable to their crisis. Loyalty 
was commanded because reason exerted its sway. Whenever 
you are tempted to think in a discouraging manner of the 
future of the American Republic, you should read the annals 
of those times when the Union itself was in the balance, and 
you should realize how inevitable is the final response of 
the American people to the demands of reason. 

Lincoln was a man of principle. Said he on one occasion, 
**I have no sentiments except those which I have derived 
from the study of the Declaration of Independence." He 
ever sought for the foundation principle, and built upon 
it with sure confidence that the house which was founded 
upon the rock could not be destroyed by the storm. He was 
profoundly an apostle of liberty, but for liberty under the 
law, developed and applied in accordance with constitutional 
principle. Rarely has the doctrine of the relation of the 



S80 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Nation to the States, and of the government to the individual 
been more lucidly expounded than in those simple sentences 
in which he said, "The Nation must control vi^hatever con- 
cerns the Nation. The State, or any minor political com- 
munity, must control whatever exclusively concerns it. The 
individual shall control whatever exclusively concerns him. 
That is really popular sovereignty." But he was a progres- 
sive man. He was sensitive to the demands of his day. 
Three years, I believe, after the outbreak of the War, he said, 
"I have not controlled events, and I confess events have con- 
trolled me, and after three years we find ourselves in a sit- 
uation which neither party, and no man, devised or expected." 
He was a man who met each demand as it arose — to the rad- 
icals he was too conservative; to the conservatives he was 
too radical. Few men have been so severely criticised and 
so mercilessly lampooned. But while he sought to deal with 
each situation as he found it, he dealt with it as illumined 
by the principles which were the light to his path and the 
guide to his feet. 

Lincoln was a man of poise. Beset with difficulties and 
bowed with grief, frequently without the sustaining encour- 
agement even of those who were close to him in his official 
family, he was still able to exercise the judgment which his- 
tory commends, and display the extraordinary talent for 
analyzing perplexing situations which is the marvel of our 
later day. 

Lincoln was a humble man, unpretentious, and genuinely 
democratic. Honors did not change him and pride could not 
corrupt him. He was a stranger to affectation. He was a 
humane man, a man of emotion well controlled; a man 
of sentiment and deep feeling. No one who has lived 
among us has been so much a brother to every man, however 
lowly born or unfortunately circumstanced. He was a lowly 
man who never asserted himself as superior to his fellows. 
Yet he could rise in the dignity of his manhood to a majesty 
that has not been surpassed by any ruler of any people 
under any form of government. When Lee sent to Grant 
suggesting an interchange of views, and the communication 



THE ROCHESTER COMMEMORATION 381 

was forwarded by Grant to the President, the President in- 
stantly wrote the following instructions for Secretary Stanton 
to transmit to General Grant : 

"The President directs me to say that he wishes you to have no 
conference with General Lee unless it be for capitulation of General 
Lee's army, or on some minor or purely military matter. He instructs 
me to say that you are not to decide, discuss, or confer upon any 
political questions. Such questions the President holds in his own 
hands, and will submit them to no military conferences or conventions. 
Meanwhile you are to press to the utmost your military advantages." 

Thus did the simple democratic ruler of a free people assimie 
the responsibilities, and assert the prerogatives, of his high 
office. It was not a desire to claim any superiority which 
he felt over his brother man ; it was simply, to him, the dis- 
charge of duty in a supreme crisis, and the assumption be- 
fore the American people of a responsibility which he dared 
not shirk, and of which his intellectual strength and sturdy 
conscience made him unafraid. 

Despite the vicissitudes of the stormy period in which he 
played so important a part, he retained his confidence in the 
people. **Why" he said, "should we not have patient con- 
fidence in the ultimate justice of the American people?" 
Why not, indeed! They have abundant opportunities for 
education. If we can only feel as Lincoln felt, and derive 
our political sentiments from a study of the Declaration of 
Independence, and proceed as Lincoln did with inexorable 
logic and high purpose to the consideration of every exi- 
gency, there can be no question but that each problem will 
be solved, that every decade of American history will wit- 
ness a fresh advance, and that the prosperity of the fu- 
ture will far transcend anything that we have realized in the 
past. 

The strength of the nation lies in the influence of the high- 
est ideals of character. "We cannot become sordid or base 
so long as we cherish the memory of Washington who won 
our liberties, and of Lincoln who preserved them. But we 
must see these men in a true perspective, not as demigods, 
splendid with power and victory, but as men, vigorous and 



382 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

alert, struggling against tremendous odds, perplexed with 
difficulties, embarrassed by conflicting voices, assailed by 
calumny, but still able unflinchingly to adhere to profound 
conviction, steadfastly to pursue great aims, and in their 
self-sacrificing devotion to display those virtues of character 
which may inspire all of us in our lesser spheres to the noble 
conduct of our lives. And in commemorating their achieve- 
ments and inculcating the lessons of their efforts, we may 
conserve those moral resources without which free institu- 
tions would become a mockery. 



THE MADISON COMMEMORATION 



THE MADISON COMMEMORATION 

AT Madison, Wisconsin, the first important commemoration 
of the day consisted of the exercises held in the special 
session of the Senate and House of Representatives. Here, a 
large audience filled all available places on the floor of the 
Assembly hall, and overflowed the three visitors' galleries. 
The hall and galleries were richly decorated with the national 
colors. Governor James O. Davidson presided, and the speak- 
ers were Senator E. P. Fairchild, of Milwaukee, and Professor 
John Charles Freeman, of the University of Wisconsin. 

School exercises were held in all the districts of the city, 
one notable one being that at the Lincoln School, where the 
pupils presented to the school a brass memorial tablet of the 
Gettysburg speech — the unveiling of the tablet being one of 
the features of the day's programme. Another presentation to 
this school — made by W. W. Warner — was an autograph letter 
from Lincoln to INIrs. Bixby, who had seven sons in the War. 
The exercises at the school were followed by a general recep- 
tion to the public, under the management of the teachers of the 
school and the educational department of the Woman's Club. 

Later in the day, five thousand students and members of the 
Faculty of the University of Wisconsin gathered in the gym- 
nasium of the University, there to hear the announcement by 
President Van Hise, that to the University of Wisconsin had 
been granted the privilege of securing the only replica of the 
heroic bronze statue of Lincoln, by Adolph Alexander Wein- 
man, being erected by the United States and the State of Ken- 
tucky, jointly, at Lincoln's birthplace, Hodgenville, Kentucky. 
This replica was secured for, and presented to, the University 
by Mr. Thomas E. Brittingham, of Madison, Wisconsin. 

The address of the day was delivered by the Rev. Jenkin 
Lloyd Jones, the well-known Lincoln enthusiast and authority, 
head of Lincoln Center, Chicago. 
^5 385 



THE GREAT STONE FACE 

PRESIDENT C. R. VAN HISE 

THROUGH the cooperation of the United States and the 
State of Kentucky, a heroic bronze statue of Abraham 
Lincoln is to be unveiled at his birthplace, Hodgenville, Ken- 
tucky, on Decoration Day of this year. This statue is by 
Mr. Adolph A. Weinman, a pupil of Saint-Gaudens. Photo- 
graphs of the statue show that this sculptor is a man of the 
first rank; that he has truly caught the spirit of his great 
master. Requests for replicas have come to the Commission 
that has the Lincoln statue in charge, from Providence, Phil- 
adelphia, Champaign, St. Louis, Lincoln, Seattle, and, on 
behalf of Oshkosh, from Mr. Hicks, United States Ambassa- 
dor to Chile. 

After much discussion, the commissioners voted to permit 
one full-sized replica of the statue to be cast, provided it 
was placed at the University of Wisconsin. This decision 
came in consequence of the great interest in the University 
of Richard Lloyd Jones, one of the commissioners, associate 
editor of "Collier's Weekly," alunmus of the University, and 
son of the speaker of to-day, the Reverend Jenkin Lloyd 
Jones. When the chance to secure the Lincoln replica for the 
University came, the question at once arose as to the source 
of the necessary funds. The situation was placed before 
Mr, Thomas E. Brittingham, of this city. With largeness of 
view he appreciated the fortunate opportimity which had 
come to him to serve the University and the State, and gladly 
agreed to furnish the required funds. Upon behalf of the 
Regents, the Faculty, the students, and the people, I wish from 
my heart to thank Mr. Brittingham for his generosity. 

The statue of Lincoln will be unveiled during the coming 

386 



THE MADISON COMMEMORATION 387 

Commencement, It will be placed in the centre of the future 
Court of Honor of the University, a short distance in front of 
University Hall, facing the east. 

It will be remembered that a lad named Ernest, created by 
Hawthorne's imagination, growing up in a village set in a 
broad and deep valley, had his attention called by his mother 
to the noble lineaments of a Great Stone Face on a mighty 
buttress of one of the surrounding mountains. Among the 
people there was a tradition that some time a native of the 
valley would appear with a face like the gigantic one in stone. 
The growing boy continued his life among the villagers, and 
each morning he looked out upon the strong and benignant 
Great Stone Face and hoped that he might some day see the 
man who was its image. The boy reached manhood and mid- 
dle age, doing the work of a villager, and lending a hand to 
his neighbors. Gradually he became a source of strength to 
the people with whom he was in contact, and very slowly as 
age grew upon him, his fame extended far beyond his native 
valley. Several times a celebrated man, born in the valley, 
returned from the outer world. Each time Ernest looked 
eagerly forward to his coming, hoping that he would resemble 
the Great Stone Face. Each time when the noted man ap- 
peared, Ernest was profoundly disappointed, but still hoped 
that before he died he would see in a man the likeness of the 
face of stone. One evening, while addressing the villagers, 
as had become his habit, a poet visitor saw the truth, and cried, 
"Behold, behold, Ernest is himself the likeness of the Great 
Stone Face ! ' ' During his many years of deep reflection upon 
the inner meanings of things, and of faithful service to his 
fellows, his features had become the counterpart of his ideal. 

It cannot be doubted that the bronze face of Abraham Lin- 
coln will modify the spiritual faces of the students of the 
University who are to view daily the sad, calm, sagacious, 
determined, and rugged face of our great President of the 
Civil War. What this Lincoln statue will do in the way of 
developing nobility of character and sustained courage to 
carry forward the fight for the advancement of the people of 
this country, no one may foreteU ; but that it will be perpetu- 



388 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

ally one of the great and high educational forces of the Uni- 
versity, no man may doubt. From it, during the centuries 
to come, many hundreds of thousands of students will gain 
at least a reflection of the spirit of service to their country 
that animated Abraham Lincoln. They will persist to the end 
in the great fight for right and equal justice to all, even as 
did this man of sorrow. This spirit will pass in some measure 
to the millions with whom they come in contact, and gradu- 
ally the widening influence for good of the Lincoln statue will 
extend throughout the world. 



THE GREAT DEBATE; or, THE PROPHET ON THE 

STUMP 

REV. JENKIN LLOYD JONES 

CENTRAL Illinois, seventy-eight years ago, represented, 
in the main, an nnstaked and untracked wild. Its com- 
bination of prairie and forest, its broad stretches of waving, 
wild grass, were rimmed by ferny glens and brush-protected 
creeks. The great forests yielded logs and rails for the pio- 
neer fences and cabins, and their branches sheltered the part- 
ridges, quail, raccoons, opossums, and deer that fed the pioneer 
and his family while he was hurrying the hominy and beans 
that would meet the game on the table, making the fare of 
the pioneer toothsome as well as wholesome, varied as well as 
vigorous. 

Into this wild country a tall, unkempt stripling drove the 
four-ox team that carried his father and step-mother, step- 
brothers, sisters, and cousin, with their simple household equip- 
ment, out of Indiana into Illinois. He had scarcely reached 
his majority. He tarried with the family long enough to 
help house his aging parents, and then, with the characteristic 
independence of the true American lad, struck out for himself ; 
for at twenty-one the true pioneer youth accepted the responsi- 
bilities of life, became responsible for his own bed, board, and 
clothing, literally became the architect of his own fortune. 
In these pioneer days the true American parent recognized 
the boy's right to his time — come twenty-one — and, without 
any sickly distrust or sentimental regret, gave him his dollar 
and said to him, * ' Your time is your own ; the world is before 
you ; go seek your destiny. ' ' 

Thus it was, a few months after the arrival with the ox- 
team and the hand-made wagon, shaped out of the sycamore, 
hickory, and oak of Indiana by the deft hand of Thomas 

389 



390 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Lincoln, the father carpenter, that the bare-footed stripling, 
trousered in buckskin and capped with coonskin, struck out for 
himself, and, in the adjoining counties of Macon and Sanga- 
mon, entered upon that great career that is the most pictur- 
esque as well as the most profoundly significant story in Amer- 
ican history. It is a story as charming as it is inspiring, as 
poetic as it is profound. It Ls the story of the Odysseus of the 
Western World, The material pegs upon which this story 
is hung are those of chopper, flatboatman, storekeeper, post- 
master. Captain of militia, surveyor, legislator, lawyer, Presi- 
dent, martyr. 

The more inward traces of the early parts of this great 
journey from the log cabin in the backwoods of Kentucky to 
the President's chair — the President of a distracted people, 
the Commander-in-Chief of the noblest army that was ever 
marshalled on this footstool of the Eternal, the martyred eman- 
cipator, who, by the stroke of his pen, enabled four million 
slaves to stand up as freemen, and made human slavery in 
these United States under sanction of the law impossible for- 
ever more, making at last the boast of our Eepublic real — 
are those that poiut to the tireless student, the matchless story- 
teller, the sad humorist of the Sangamon and the invincible 
lawyer on the circuit. 

Twenty-eight years after, this driver of oxen, whose efficient 
weapons were only the ox-goad, the axe, and the oar, took the 
leading part in a great intellectual joust, a tourney of intellect, 
a memorable political debate. Of this I would speak this 
morning, on the centennial anniversary of his birthday. 

Abe Lincoln, the ox-driver, was easily the champion wrestler 
when he entered Illinois. His long anns, sinewed with steel, 
his giant legs, framed as of iron, were more than a match for 
whoever dared grapple with him. When, twenty-eight years 
afterwards, Abraham Lincoln came to try his strength in the 
great intellectual wrestling match of history, he was to clinch 
a veritable giant of intellect, an adept on the platform, and 
a master of that great tester of brain which we call the Amer- 
ican Stump. 

The details of that story are not for me to tell ; they should 



THE MADISON COMMEMORATION 391 

be told by some competent eye and ear witness. It was not 
only a battle of giants, but it was a testing ground of truth, 
a sifting mill of the Almighty, whereby dark problems were 
beaten into clear, holy issues forced to the front, and the 
banners of progress borne forward by virtue of the mistakes 
and the crudities, the fallacies as well as the truths, then enun- 
ciated. 

The contestants were mortal ; many of the arguments were 
temporal and transitory; but immortal justice broke through 
the subterfuges and the sophistries, the passing passion, the 
unworthy ambition, and the flippant applause that so filled 
the foreground of those days that the grim but sublime figures 
of Truth and Right in the background were so obscured that, 
at the end of fifty years, we are just beginning to see through 
the dust and to distinguish between the passing, and the per- 
manent notes, in the boisterous turmoil. 

The great debate began at Ottawa, August 31, and closed 
at Alton, October 15, 1858. Seven times was the trumpet 
blown, summoning the giants to battle ; seven times did vast 
multitudes of feverish, distracted, perplexed voters seek to 
champion their chosen leaders; others, perhaps the majority, 
sought for light, hoping for some solution of the great per- 
plexity. 

This battle of giants in Illinois fifty years ago, represents one 
great climacteric in the history of the United States. There 
democracy was fought to a finish, so far as two mighty men 
could fight it, on the true battle field of democracy — the politi- 
cal stump. Here was waged the war of the new regime, with 
ballots — not bullets — for weapons. The parry and thrust in 
this contest were with wit and not with bayonets ; here blood 
flowed freely indeed, but through unsevered arteries; the red 
currents tided with increasing potency through enkindled 
brains and flaming hearts. 

AVe turn the pages of history in vain to find anything com- 
parable with the popular enthusiasm, the civic awakening, 
the political revival, which culminated in the great debate 
between Stephen A. Douglas and Abraham Lincoln in Illinois 
in 1858. 



392 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Draw a line from the prophetic heights upon which stood 
the great reformers of Jewry in the eighth century B. C. — 
Amos, Micah, Hosea, and Isaiah — to the peaks of prophecy 
whereon stood the rail-splitter of Illinois in the nineteenth 
century of the Christian era, and there is no leader in civic 
agitation, no champion of just government, high enactments, 
and progressive legislation, whose head rises to break the line. 

I am not unmindful of the political revolutions that followed 
in the wake of Benedict, Charlemagne, Luther, and Cromwell ; 
I am not speaking of the saintliness and spiritual clearness 
reached by individual souls, such as Socrates, Paul, St. Fran- 
cis, Fox, Channing, and their fellows. What I mean to say 
is, that from Amos and Isaiah to Abraham Lincoln and his 
fellows, no political issue, no legislative problem, was found so 
ethical — none was so freighted with principle, so identified 
with the cause of justice and progress — as that beaten out and 
brought to the high issues of popular suffrage by the great 
debate, the semi-centennial of which was celebrated with fit- 
ting pomp, oratory, and song in the State of Illinois last 
Autumn. 

The cause of freedom, the rights of races and religions, were 
often challenged in the intervening centuries, and such causes 
have always found inspired spokesmen ; but in such crises 
the appeal, for the most part, was made to crowned heads; 
the fate of justice was in the hands of an aristocracy, either 
civic or ecclesiastic. Such appeals, for the most part, were to 
dukes or to bishops, convocations of priests or of nobles. But 
this appeal was to the people, the common people ; the question 
was submitted, not to the decision of clerics or of warriors, 
but to voters. 

We talk of "the War of '61 to '65," and, at this distance, 
the younger men and women may think of it as a clap of 
thunder out of a clear sky, an unexpected cloud-burst in the 
heavens that were otherwise serene. Not so. One of the latest 
and most philosophic studies of the great conflict is entitled 
"The American Ten Years' War, from 1855 to 1865." This 
author, Denton 'J. Snyder, finds the beginning of the conflict 
at least as far back as the first invasion of Kansas by five 




>N\«r: 







-^ T. 



a, § 



c3 



THE MADISON COMMEMORATION 393 

thousand and more armed men, well named "Border Ruf- 
fians," for they came from slave-holding territory for the 
express purpose of extending the boundaries of the same. 
This army was met by a force, equally picturesque and intense, 
but far more lofty in character and purpose. It came from 
the north and east to hold "bleeding Kansas" to liberty. 
Grim, dauntless "Old John Brown of Ossawattomie" is not 
an unworthy representative of this other army. In the presi- 
dential campaign of 1856 battle lines became more defined 
when the friends of freedom and haters of slavery found a 
not unfitting standard-bearer in the dashing path-finder of the 
Rocky Mountains, John C. Fremont. Two years later, here 
in Illinois, the other side was marshalled into battle line by 
its brilliant Senator, the "Little Giant," who met the com- 
paratively obscure champion of a new and unpopular move- 
ment in high debate. 

To adequately tell the story of this debate would be to write 
the history of American slavery; to trace its origin, breadth, 
strength, decay, and death would be to discuss the perplexities 
that gathered around it from beginning to finish. It would 
further be to discuss the ethics of expediency and to test the 
logic of compromise. 

In this great debate the prophet and the politician met face 
to face, not only in the persons of Stephen A. Douglas and 
Abraham Lincoln, but in the internal arrangement, the spirit- 
ual equipment, the conflict within the breasts of both Douglas 
and Lincoln ; for politics and prophecy wrestled with each 
other in the utterances of both these men. To use Lincoln's 
own figure, as remembered by Carl Schurz, "These wrestlers 
worked themselves almost into one another 's coats. ' ' 

Here two theories of government, two criteria of action, two 
tests of what is true and wise in human conduct and State 
enactments, clutched in deadly combat. 

Never did two knights, haloed in poetry and romance, meet 
in tournament more picturesque or with more striking con- 
trasts. One came, boastful of superior ancestry, conscious of 
a noble New England lineage, a proud son of Vermont, stocked 
with sufficient learning to give him prestige among the un- 



394 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

schooled pioneers — the prestige of a schoolmaster had given 
way to the successful lawyer, the triumphant politician who 
had already won with honor the senatorial toga — short, fat, a 
master of sarcasm, a debater of national repute. The other 
came, as he and his neighbors supposed, a child of humble, 
illiterate, obscure parentage, the story of which he modestly 
condensed into the single line of poetry — ' ' The short and sim- 
ple annals of the poor." In appearance they were as diverse as 
they were in their origin and their pretension ; it was five feet 
two versus six feet four. It seemed, again, to be a cavalier 
versus a plebeian. 

Already the University of his native State had invested the 
favored son, Stephen A. Douglas, with academic honors. He 
was LL. D. Lincoln's literary fame and scholastic attain- 
ments consisted only in the reputation of being the champion 
story-teller of the Sangamon district, the ^sop of the prairies, 
the Merry Andrew of the Illinois bar. There were no academic 
honors for him. His idiom v»^as provincial ; his pronunciation 
was that of a rustic. The scholars deplored the lack of that 
something called "culture," but the farmers greeted one 
another with, "Have you heard Abe's last?" 

These are points of contrast, but there were points of agree- 
ment equally interesting, which points were well stated by 
Douglas in the opening speech at Ottawa as he manoeuvred 
for an advantageous start in the great tournament : 

"I have known him for nearly twenty-five years. There were many 
points of sympathy between us when we first got acquainted. We 
were both comparatively boys, and both struggling with poverty in a 
strange land. I was a school teacher in the town of Winchester, 
and he a flourishing grocery-keeper in the town of Salem. He was 
more successful in his occupation than I was in mine, and hence more 
fortunate in this world's goods. Lincoln is one of those peculiar men 
who perform with admirable skill everything which they undertake. I 
made as good a school teacher as I could, and when a cabinet-maker 
I made a good bedstead and tables, although my old boss said I suc- 
ceeded bettor with bureaus and secretaries than with anything else; 
but I believe that Lincoln was always more successful in business 
than I, for his business enabled him to get into the Legislature. I 
met him there, however, and had a sympathy with him, because of 
the uphill struggle we both had in life. He was then just as good at 



THE MADISON COMMEMORATION 395 

telling an anecdote as now. ... I sympathized with him because 
he was struggling with difficulties, and so was I. Mr. Lincoln served 
with me in the Legislature in 1836, when we both retired, and he 
subsided, or became submerged, and he was lost sight of as a public 
man for some years." 

At the outset, "Little Giant" was a happier phrase to con- 
jure by than that of ''raftsman," "ox-driver," or "rail- 
splitter." There is evidence that Douglas and his friends 
were loath to accept the challenge from this rustic, lest it 
might lower the dignity of a United States Senator and give 
undue publicity to an obscure rival. But the careful historian 
also discovers that the man from Vermont realized the quality 
of his foeman; he shrank from putting his astuteness over 
against the homely frankness of the man from Kentucky; he 
felt, if he did not know, that the common people were more 
familiar with principle than with diplomacy, and more sus- 
ceptible to the appeal to the heart and the conscience than to 
the logic of prudence and the intrigue of politicians. 

On the other hand, the friends of Lincoln feared that his 
unschooled oratory would be no match for the more brilliant 
rhetoric of the Senator; that he would be cornered and con- 
fused by the dexterity of his opponent. But, most of all, 
they feared that Lincoln's intensity of conviction and frank- 
ness of aim would undo him, even if the brilliancy of his 
opponent failed, and the sequel shows how well founded were 
these anxieties. 

This battle of giants began at least as far back as that 
motley gathering in Bloomington on the twenty-ninth of May, 
1856, where the Republican party of Illinois was born. It 
was a convention of discontents, the disturbed, detached, and 
semi-detached fragments of all the old parties : the old Whigs, 
who were ready to confess the imbecility and inadequacy of 
their party; the uneasy Democrats, who were beginning to 
face the problem which the party, honestly, in the main, tried 
to evade; the out-and-out radicals, those who had heard the 
moan of the slave-mother, the crack of the .slave-driver's whip, 
those who, with the eye of the spirit, had seen what the 
Mississippi River boatman had seen with his bodily eyes in 



396 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

New Orleans nearly a quarter of a century before — a woman 
on the auction block — and could understand and approve the 
exclamation of the boy Lincoln to his cousin, John Hanks, 
"Great God, look at that! If power is ever given me I will 
hit that accursed thing hard!" Here were Abolitionists 
proud of the name, successors of Lovejoy, followers of Lloyd 
Garrison, Wendell Phillips, and Theodore Parker, those to 
whom the ringing measures of Whittier and Lowell were as 
psalms of the sanctuary; and those who were ill at ease in 
their presence, who dreaded their vehemence and disclaimed 
the incendiary title. History calls it a convention, but it 
was rather an unorganized and incoherent mass without 
vision; they were as sheep without a shepherd, and in their 
imbecility they cried "Lincoln!" "Lincoln!" "Lincoln!" 
And the man whose political ideal had always been Henry 
Clay, who had grown weary in waiting for the Whigs, his 
political party, to rise to the occasion, whose spirit chafed 
within its bonds, at last broke loose in a speech, the very 
excellence of which threatened to annihilate it. A young 
newspaper reporter on The Chicago Tribune — subsequently 
to become the editor and proprietor of that paper in its 
ascendant era — Joseph Medill, said : 

"I began taking notes but I soon forgot myself, joined with the 
convention in cheering and stamping and clapping to the end. When 
the calm had come I awoke out of an hypnotic trance and thought of 
my report for the Trihune, aad there was nothing written. It was 
some sort of satisfaction to find that I had not been scooped, as all 
the newspaper men present had been equally carried away by the 
excitement caused by the wonderful oration and had made no report 
or sketch of this speech." 

Forty years after, the famous "lost speech" was partly 
rescued from oblivion by the energy of "McClure's Maga- 
zine." A skeleton of the speech, elicited from the memory 
of H. C. Whitney and others, was printed in the September 
number of 1896, and we discover in this ragged remnant that 
all the logic, pathos, and appeal of his subsequent career were 
anticipated in that explosion of the spirit. It created a po- 
litical Pentecost, and, however diverse the vernacular, all 



THE MADISON COMMEMORATION 397 

understood the Evangel, yielded to the gospel appeal, and 
were lifted up above the trammels of expediency, halting poli- 
cies, and that black beast — the bugaboo that has demoralized 
and degraded so many Conventions — "What will they say?" 
' ' What will they say ? " " They ' ' will say, of course, the idlest 
thing that is going in an earnest world; "they" will put 
shortest meaning on long sentences; "they" will interpret 
noble utterances meanly ; "they" will parry, qualify, discount, 
distrust, hold back, using the breeching instead of the collar 
in the harness that is attached to the car of progress. 

There at Bloomington, as Whitney remembered, Lincoln 
said : 

"The battle of freedom is to be fought out on principle. Slavery 
is a violation of the eternal right. We have temporized with it from 
the necessities of our condition, but as sure as God reigns and school 
children read, that black foul lie can neveb be consecbated into 
god's hallowed truth! . . . 

"In seeking to attain these results — so indispensable if the liberty 
which is our pride and boast shall endure — we will be loyal to the 
Constitution and to the 'flag of our Union'; and no matter what our 
grievance — even though Kansas shall come in as a slave State; and 
no matter what theirs — even if we shall restore the Compromise — we 
will say to the Southern Disunionists, 'we won't go out of the union, 
AND YOU shan't! ! !'" 

Here the record ends abruptly in a series of exclamation 
points; the sentences are lost in a blaze of light, but the con- 
quering spirit was there awakened, and in the astoundingly 
short period of seven years the hand of the orator fulfilled 
the prophecy of the heart and signed the Emancipation 
Proclamation. 

Two years after the birth throes at Bloomington, June 17, 
1858, the Republican State Convention at Springfield was to 
name a candidate for the United States Senate to take the 
place of Illinois 's favored son, one whose fame was already 
national, the brilliant "Little Giant," Stephen A. Douglas. 
The Chicago delegation carried into the hall a banner upon 
which was inscribed, "Cook County fob Lincoln!" In 
the midst of wild excitement a man from down the State 
asked permission to revise the banner, and placed over the 



398 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

words, "Cook County/' in larger letters, the word, "Illi- 
nois,'' and the unanimity did not wait for formal ballot. 
That night the Pilot of Destiny took his place at the wheel 
and ventured to cast the horoscope of national politics, and, 
like the captain on the high seas that he was, he took his 
reckoning by the stars. 

* * Where are we and whither are we tending ? ' ' was his first 
question, and this his portentous answer: 

" 'A house divided against itself cannot stand.' I believe this gov- 
ernment cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do 
not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall; 
but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It vrill become all one 
thing, or all the other." 

Three weeks later, Senator Douglas returned from Wash- 
ington, and in the City of Chicago began the fight for the 
retention of the toga. The worst fears of Lincoln's friends 
were realized. The fated "house-divided-against-itself" pas- 
sage was seized upon as the war cry of the "Little Giant." 
This was "incendiary" doctrine; it was "sectionalism," "de- 
fiant to the Constitution," "dangerous to the State." It was 
"rebellion," "treason," and the lovers of freedom trembled. 
But Lincoln was not scared. Next week, at the Springfield 
State Fair, Lincoln and Douglas were both heard. Lines were 
being formed, arguments being marshalled. Douglas was 
tactical ; it was for him to dissipate the rising enthusiasm, 
to multiply perplexities, to scatter the attention, to impress 
the public with the ethical confusion, the economic menace, 
and the political dangers of the situation. He was sincerely 
alarmed. Lincoln saw his course much more clearly; his 
larger ship sank into the deeper waters where lies the eternal 
calm. 

"When winds are raging o'er the upper ocean, 
And billows wild contend with angry roar, 
'T is said, far down beneath the wild commotion. 
That peaceful stillness reigneth evermore." 

So, on the twenty-fourth day of July, 1858, thirty-seven 
days after the fateful Springfield address, Lincoln addressed 
the following note to Douglas : 



THE MADISON COMMEMORATION 399 

"Chicago, Illinois, July 24, 1858. 
"Hon. S. a. Douglas. 

" My Dear Sir: Will it be agreeable to you to make an arrangement 
for you and myself to divide time, and address the same audiences the 
present canvass? Mr. Judd, who will hand you this, is authorized 
to receive your answer; and, if agreeable to you, to enter into the 
terms of such arrangement.- 

"Your obedient servant, 

"A. Lincoln." 

The same day the reply came, written at some length, 
evasive, halting, but consenting to speak once in each of the 
seven congressional districts. And so the great itinerary was 
arranged for — 

Ottawa, August 21 

Freeport, " 27 

Jonesboro, Sept. 15 

Charleston, " 18 

Galesburg, Oct. 7 

Quincy, " 13 

Alton, " 15 

On the fiftieth anniversary year, the spots whereon these 
hustings were held were glow points in the history of Illinois. 
Here, unconsciously, the destiny of the nation hung upon the 
breath of these two men. Bronze tablets to commemorate the 
dates and places were placed, and the pen of the historian, 
the poet, and the philosopher were sharpened to interpret the 
same. 

In 1858, the students of Knox College displayed on the front 
of the building, in rear of the open-air platform, in bold let- 
ters : * ' Knox College is for Lincoln ! ' ' Forty years after, 
in 1896, a bronze tablet was put into the face of the building, 
and the movement for the erection of a Lincoln Science Hall 
was set afoot, with the nation's applause. 

It was arranged that the speakers were to introduce the 
debates alternately, Douglas securing the first and last open- 
ing, by his own stipulation. The first speaker was to occupy 
an hour; the next, an hour and a half; the first speaker to 
close with half an hour rejoinder. Biographers, writers of 
fiction and poetry, and orators, have tried to depict the pic- 



400 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

turesqueness, the dramatic intensity, the popular outpourings 
of these gatherings, but they have all failed. Only those who 
were of it and in it can understand how they came — by wagons 
and by trains, afoot, on horseback, across State and County 
lines, overflowing hotels, and private houses — camping out on 
the prairies, sleeping under the stars, enduring uncomplain- 
ingly the scorching rays of the sun, cheering unwearied by the 
light of the moon, disputing, debating, talking, talking, and, 
what is better, thinking, thinking, and thinking again on new 
lines. For the most part such political gatherings do but little 
more than confirm convictions already held, deepen prejudices 
which the listeners carry with them, but here men were con- 
verted, not only by individuals, but by families, in blocks; 
audiences were given fresh angles of vision, touched with new 
purposes and enthusiasms, and the votes of Counties changed. 

The spectacular phases, the externals of this debate, were 
fascinating and striking. Douglas was the cavalier riding in 
his special car, often drawn by special engine, accompanied 
by brass bands that played, "Lo, the conquering hero comes!" 
A cannon, carried on an open car, belched the news of his 
arrival; gaily caparisoned coaches met him, and mounted 
horsemen caricoled at the head of the column that wended its 
way to the stand ; a barouche with four milk-white horses was 
his Freeport conveyance. 

On the other hand was Lincoln, plain, awkward, carrying 
his own shawl and grip, at first at least travelling lonely, 
sometimes in the caboose of freight cars; and when, towards 
the end, his fellow-citizens would do him honor, convoyed by 
them to the speaker's stand in a "prairie schooner." 

But the more exciting features were psychological. It was 
a duel of intellects, a battle of brains, in which, for strategic 
agility and platform manoeuvring, Senator Douglas probably 
held the advantage all the way through. It is painful to see 
how much time was consumed on both sides in seeking tactical 
advantage, the one of the other. The wrestlers stood often 
at bay and used the precious time, each in trying to get the 
under hold. But it was no playtime for the speakers. Al- 
though delivered without manuscript and illumined with the 



THE MADISON COMMEMORATION 401 

play and repartee of extempore speech, each speaker did his 
level best ; there is evidence of careful preparation and studied 
utterances on both sides. 

At this distance "Squatter sovereignty," "State sover- 
eignty," "The Wilmot Proviso," "Lecompton Constitution," 
"Nebraska and Anti-Nebraska Bills," "Bleeding Kansas," 
"Border Ruffians," even the "Mason and Dixon Line," and 
the "Dred Scott decision," need interpretation; they mean 
but little to our children, but these words represent the storm- 
centres of the debate. Between the lines of these speeches 
it is not hard to discover the real debate in a nutshell, and here 
it is : A house divided against itself cannot stand ; this na- 
tion cannot remain half slave and half free, and it will not be 
wholly slave. 

This was the bright target against which the polished 
arrows of Stephen A. Douglas fell like hail. He accused 
Lincoln of awakening a sectional spirit, arousing race preju- 
dices, provoking slave-holding anxieties, shocking conventional 
proprieties, defying constitutional safeguards; in short, mak- 
ing himself an impractical fanatic who would be an idealist, 
a reckless reformer. 

On the other hand, in an unguarded moment, Stephen A. 
Douglas had said that he "did not care whether in the new 
Territory of Kansas slavery was voted up or voted down ! ' ' 
This became the centre of Lincoln's attack, the vulnerable 
target for his high archery. Here was a man seeking the 
popular suffrage, who was dull to the instincts of liberty, 
indifferent to the atrocities of slavery, careless of the rights 
of the human soul, defiant to the fundamental postulates of 
the Declaration of Independence, which to Lincoln meant all 
men. Douglas maintained it meant only all white men, with 
preference for native-bom white Americans at that. "Did 
not care whether the virgin State of Kansas should be dedi- 
cated to perpetual freedom or to perpetual slavery!" ex- 
claimed Lincoln. "Was this, a man who made his policy of 
State Sovereignty of more importance than the principles of 
human liberty, to be returned to the United States Senate 
and perchance two years hence to take his place as the stand- 
26 



402 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

ard-bearer of the Democratic Party, and to be made President 
of the great Republic ? " he further asked. 

The debate began at Ottawa, where liberty-loving sentiment 
was strong. Here Douglas propounded seven questions, hop- 
ing to commit Lincoln to the most radical position, so that, 
to use his own phrase, ' ' When I trot him down to the southern 
part of the State, where the pro-slavery sentiment is strong, 
I can show him in his true light. ' ' But Lincoln 's boyish skill 
as a wrestler held him in good stead. He postponed the an- 
swers until the next meeting, and his final appeal was so 
satisfying that at the close of the debate he was carried to 
the hotel on the shoulders of his admirers. 

Six days later, at Freeport, Lincoln answered Douglas's 
seven questions and retorted by propounding four hard ques- 
tions to "The Little Giant." The second question was such 
as to give Douglas an opportunity to answer in a way to 
allay the anxiety of the hesitating friends of liberty and to 
justify his halting politics to the cautious politicians. Lin- 
coln's friends strongly disapproved of this question, for tacti- 
cal reasons. A delegation of Chicago friends disturbed his 
midnight slumbers at Dixon the night before the debate with 
their protests, but Lincoln proved the more skilful tactician. 
He was courting short-range defeat in the interest of a long- 
range victory. When Douglas said, ''The people of a Terri- 
tory have the right to exclude slavery from its limits," he 
reassured his Northern friends, but in the same breath he 
incurred the distrust and enmity of every sincere believer in 
slavery. By that simple sentence Douglas forfeited forever 
the confidence of the Southern slaveholder. 

The next bout, on the fifteenth day of September, was at 
Jonesboro in Union County. This is as near Egypt as you 
can ever get in Illinois, for it is always said to begin "in the 
next County south." The audience was necessarily largely 
people of Southern antecedents, and Douglas knew his audi- 
ence; he made the most of their prejudices; feathered his 
arrows with Fred Douglass who, he said, came to hear him at 
Freeport, riding in a carriage beside a white woman, while 
her husband sat on the box with the driver. His favorite 



THE MADISON COMMEMORATION 403 

epithet here was "Black Republican." Here he propounded 
the old brutal reductio ad ahsurdum as to the white man 
marrying a black woman. 

Lincoln, too, knew how to use geographical prejudices. In 
his closing sentences at Jonesboro he said : 

"Did the Judge talk of trotting me down to Egypt to scare me to 
death ? ^Yhy, I know this people better than he does. I was raised 
just a little east of here. I am a part of this people. But the Judge 
was raised further North, and perhaps he has some horrid idea of 
what this people might be induced to do." 

The next debate was held at Charleston. After this at 
Galesburg, Lincoln said : 

"Whatever may be the result of this ephemeral contest between Judge 
Douglas and myself, I see the day rapidly approaching when his pill 
of sectionalism, which he has been thrusting down the throats of Re- 
publicans for years past, will be crowded down his own throat." 

A week later, October IS', they were at Quincy, and, two 
days after, the great tournament came to an end at Alton. 
Douglas's voice had given out; his friends listened to him 
with pain and anxiety. Lincoln's voice was clear, his en- 
thusiasm unabated, and his courage waxing stronger and 
stronger. They were standing on ground already consecrated 
to liberty. Here, twenty years before, Elijah Lovejoy's 
printing press was thrown into the river, the publishing house 
burned, and he himself gave his life to the cause — the first 
conspicuous soldier to fall in the battle for freedom and the 
Union. More clearly than anywhere else, perhaps, Lincoln 
outlined the inevitable conflict; he saw the impending crisis. 

But before I ask you to listen to his closing appeal, I must 
give a few moments to the consideration of the Charleston 
debate, the most prominent of all the debates to this time and 
place, but to the historian perhaps the least significant be- 
cause the most personal, for it was almost wholly given over 
to a discussion of Lyman Trumbull's part in the imbroglio — 
Douglas trying to clear himself from what he considered 
certain misstatements of Senator Trumbull ; Lincoln attempt- 
ing to vindicate the character of Judge Trumbull and to 



404. ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

substantiate the charges. The intricacies and subtilties of 
this debate may be judged when I tell you that in the Nicolay 
and Hay edition of the "Speeches and Addresses of Lincoln" 
there are over ten solid pages in fine type of supplementary 
reading, put in as necessary material in order to understand 
the debate at Charleston. 

Lincoln opened the debate, his speech covering ten pages in 
the book just referred to. Notwithstanding the secondary 
matter just described, the speech is memorable and immortal, 
if for no other reason than that here at Charleston he silenced, 
once and for all, the coarse knock-out bravado of the "black 
wife" threat, which Douglas propounded at Jonesboro, and 
which at the end of fifty years is still the last resort, the 
stock in trade of him who would appeal to race prejudice 
and justify the injustice and inequalities resting thereon. 

"I do not understand,'' said the greatest Kentuckian, "that because 
I do not want a negro woman for a slave I necessarily want her for 
a wife. ... I am now in my fiftieth year and I certainly never 
have had a black woman for either a slave or a wife. So it seems to 
me quite possible for us to get along without making either slaves or 
wives of negroes." 

Two flashes of Lincoln's wit brighten the first address. He 
reminded that audience that the social and political relations 
of the negro and the white man were matters of state and not 
of United States legislation, and inasmuch as Judge Douglas 
was in constant horror of some rapidly approaching danger 
in that direction, he suggested that the most efficient means 
to prevent this would be to keep the Judge at home and send 
him to the State Legislature, there to fight the dangerous 
measure. 

Again alluding to Judge Douglas's disclaimer of certain 
action in the Kansas matter, Lincoln said, "It is said that a 
bear is sometimes hard enough pushed to drop a cub, and 
so I presume it was in this case. ' ' 

Stephen A. Douglas's Address, delivered fifty years ago, 
covers sixteen compact pages in the authorized version of 
Lincoln's "Works," filled with dexterous sarcasm, and elo- 
quent, sometimes fiery, appeals to race prejudice. He talks 



THE MADISON COMMEMORATION 405 

of Lincoln's ''rank abolitionism," his ''negro equality doc- 
trine," the "enormity of the principles of the Abolitionists," 
accuses Lincoln of an attempt to conceal "from this vast" 
audience the real question which divides the two great par- 
ties"; he discovers a conspiracy on the part of the "Black 
Eepublicans" to carry the election by slander and not by fair 
means; says "Lincoln's only hope of riding into office is 
on Trumbull's back, bearing his calumnies"; accuses Lin- 
coln of trying to occupy his time in personal matters to 
prevent his showing up the revolutionary principles which the 
Abolition Party has proclaimed to the world; talks of "Fred 
Douglass, the negro, hunting me down, now speaking in the 
Southern part of the State"; flaunts in the face of the audi- 
ence a printed speech of the "black orator"; charges the 
"Black Republicans" with changing their names and com- 
plexions like a chameleon. 

Lincoln's half-hour rejoinder covers six pages of the official 
report ; he explains his position on negro citizenship in a way 
that would at the present time satisfy the most cautious ex- 
Confederate of the South; explains his position on the 
Mexican War while in Congress — always refusing to vote for 
any endorsement of the origin or justice of the War, but never 
refusing to vote supplies for the army. In this speech he 
compared Judge Douglas to the "cuttle fish, a small species 
of fish that has no mode of defending itself when pursued 
except by throwing out a black fluid, which makes the water 
so dark that the enemy cannot see it, and thus it escapes." 
The sagacious lawyer of the circuit was alert and alive. He 
would stand no "playing upon the meaning of words," or 
"quibbling around the edges of the evidence." Pointing to 
an individual, he said: 

"I assert that you are here to-day, and you undertake to prove me 
a liar by showing that you were in Mattoon yesterday, I say that you 
took your hat off your head, and you prove me a liar by putting it on 
your head. This is the whole force of Douglas's argument." 

But for all this playfulness and the consumption of time 
on the part of the speakers, and of enthusiasm on the part of 



406 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

the audience on what at this distance seems trivial and un- 
important, Lincohi did not let his audience lose sight of the 
main issue. He said : 

"If Kansas should sink to-day, and leave a great vacant place in 
the earth's surface, this vexed question would still be among us. . . . 
I do not suppose that in the most peaceful way ultimate extinction 
[of slavery] would occur in less than a hundred years at last; but that 
it will occur in the best way for both races, in God's own good time, 
I have no doubt." 

The tremendous mental activity, the brain storm that then 
raged, is curiously suggested by the things that did not get 
themselves said; by the material that was crowded out, the 
fragments that were left over, enough to fill more than the 
twelve baskets. The collectors of Lincoln's words have 
dumped in between the Charleston and Galesburg speeches 
fifteen pages of curious matter, under the strangely character- 
istic head of "Fragments," showing that even with Lincoln, 
and doubtless with Douglas, as with the rest of us, the best 
things often did not get themselves said. Let me pass on to 
a changed audience what Lincoln had probably planned to 
say, but had not time to give : 

"'Give to him that is needy' is the Christian rule of charity; 
'Take from him that is needy' is the rule of slavery. 

"The . . . pro-slavery theology seems to be this: 'Slavery is not 
universally right, nor yet universally wrong; it is better for some people 
to be slaves; and, in such cases, it is the will of God that they be such.' 

"The Rev. Dr. Ross has a slave named Sambo, and the question is, 
'Is it the will of God that Sambo should remain a slave, or be set free?' 
While he considers it, he sits in the shade, with gloves on his hands, 
and subsists on the bread that Sambo is earning in the burning sun. 
If he decides that God wills Sambo to be free, he thereby has to walk 
out of the shade, throw off his gloves, and delve for his own bread. 

"When Judge Douglas ascribes such [logic] to me he does so . . . 
by such fantastic arrangements of words as prove 'horse chestnuts to 
be chestnut horses.' 

"I claim no extraordinary exemption from personal ambition. That 
I like preferment as well as the average of men may be admitted. 



THE MADISON COMMEMORATION 407 

But I protest I have not entered upon this hard contest solely, or even 
chiefly, for a merely personal object. ... I enter upon the contest 
to contribute my humble and temporary mite in opposition to that 
effort [to make slavery universal and perpetual in this nation]. 

"The negro being doomed, and damned, and forgotten, to everlasting 
bondage, is the white man quite certain that the tyrant demon will 
not turn upon him too?" 

What a pity this sentence did not get itself uttered on 
every one of the seven platforms in that great debate : 

"To give the victory to the right, not bloody bullets, but peaceful 
ballots only are necessary. Thanks to our good old Constitution, and 
organization under it, these alone are necessary. It only needs that 
every right-thinking man shall go to the polls, and without fear or 
prejudice vote as he thinks." 

Now, then, let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter, 
the summing up of this debate between the great politician 
and the great prophet, as the prophet saw it and stated in the 
closing speech at Alton : 

"That is the real issue. This is the issue that will continue in 
this country when these poor tongues of Judge Douglas and myself 
shall be silent. It is the eternal struggle between these two principles 
— right and wrong — throughout the world. They are the two princi- 
ples that have stood face to face from the beginning of time; and 
will ever continue to struggle. The one is the common right of hu- 
manity, and the other the divine right of kings. It is the same prin- 
ciple in whatever shape it develops itself. It is the same spirit that 
says, 'You toil and work and earn bread, and I '11 eat it.' No mat- 
ter in what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king who 
seeks to bestride the people of his own nation and live by the fruit 
of their laborj or from one race of men as an apology for enslaving 
another race, it is the same tyrannical principle. I was glad to ex- 
press my gratitude at Quincy, and I re-express it here to Judge 
Douglas — that he looks to no end of the institution of slavery. That 
will help the people to see where the struggle really is. It will here- 
after place with us all men who really do wish the wrong may have 
an end. And whenever we can get rid of the fog which obscures the 
real question, when we can get Judge Douglas and his friends to avow 
a policy looking to its perpetuation, we can get out from among them 
that class of men and bring them to the side of those who treat it as a 
wrong." 



408 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Thus closed the great debate, the best sustained, most con- 
spicuous, most intellectual, and most ethical contest of intel- 
lect and personality on a popular platform known in history. 
As predicted, Lincoln lost the senatorship, though he had 
gained a popular majority of four thousand. Of course, he 
was disappointed. He said he "felt like the boy who had 
stubbed his toe — it hurt too much to laugh and he was too 
big to cry. ' ' But Lincoln bargained for his defeat ; in part, 
at least, he knew what he was doing. '*I would rather be 
beaten with that in the speech than to succeed with it ex- 
punged," was his word concerning the " house-divided-against- 
itself" passage. Of the mischievous questions at Freeport, 
against which his sagacious political friends counselled, he 
said: *'I am for larger game than the senatorship." It is 
generally supposed that at that time his eye was on the presi- 
dential campaign of two years later. I suspect his thought 
was less personal ; that he had in mind the clearing up of the 
issue, the forcing of the main battle, that being the ultimate 
triimiph of freedom. 

In the February following, the "Sad Humorist of the 
Sangamon" stood in the lime-light of the nations, as he deliv- 
ered the Cooper Institute Address. Men of letters, the leaders 
in culture and statesmanship of New York city, listened with 
bated breath to the riverman of the West, the awkward lawyer 
of the prairies. The peroration of that masterpiece in 
American statesmanship indicated the logic by means of 
which he had won the hearts as well as the brains of the 
noblest in America, the lance by which he unhorsed his 
chivalric opponent in the great tournament, the road upon 
which he travelled to his triumph : 

"Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations 
against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the 
government, nor of dungeons to ourselves. Let us have faith that 
Tight makes might, and in that faith let us to the end dare to do our 
duty as we understand it." 

The Chicago papers, then as now, displayed commendable 
enterprise as news-gatherers. The Lincoln speeches were 
stenographically reported in full in the columns of The Chi- 



THE MADISON COMMEMORATION 409 

cago Tribune, and those of Stephen A. Douglas in The Chi- 
cago Times, but when, two years later, Lincoln was anxious 
to make campaign uses of them in the greater race, Chicago 
enterprise halted ; the vision of the newspaper man was 
blurred. No publisher dared make the necessary investment, 
and so the obscure printing firm of Follett, Foster & Co., 
of Columbus, Ohio, dared and reaped a golden harvest. 
Edition after edition was called for; the press was busy 
night and day in suppljdng the demand, and happy is the 
heart of the collector who can to-day secure a copy of the 
plain, unpretentious *' first edition," which sold for fifty 
cents, for as many dimes. 

What a great interpreter is Time! How the half-century 
has cleared up things, brought out the outlines that were 
dim in the shadows ! No one at this distance thinks Stephen 
A. Douglas a bad man. He was not in love with treason nor 
in his heart allied to slavery; he was simply a victim of his 
inheritance and his environment, unable to discriminate clearly 
between things transient and things permanent ; between popu- 
larity and power ; between success and truth ; between what is 
right and what is expedient. He lived long enough, thank 
Heaven ! to be tutored of circumstances into the better way. 
The lightning flashes through the battle storm enabled him to 
see things clear, which the bright sunlight of peace had hid 
from his view. He lived to hold his opponent's hat while he 
took the presidential oath of office, administered by Chief 
Justice Taney, author of the Dred Scott decision, which the 
new President so loathed, and which, under the mysterious 
providence of God, he was to overrule and reverse, to the 
surprise and admiration of the civilized world. Stephen A. 
Douglas lived long enough to hurry to the President's side 
before the smoke of rebel guns had cleared from over Sump- 
ter, and help kindle the fires of patriotism and loyalty in 
his own Illinois and throughout the entire North. He lived 
long enough to say, "There are but two parties now, patriots 
and traitors," and with his dying breath to whisper, "Teach 
my boys to obey the laws and to uphold the Constitution." 

The years have dispelled the shadows out of which the 



410 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

great Lincoln emerged. We now know that in him the law 
of heredity was not tricked. If, as the poet has sung, he 
was cast in a "new mold," it was the mold made out of 
materials fused in the seething caldron we call "history." 
We now know that in the veins of Abraham Lincoln flowed 
the blood of noble ancestry. His is a name that reaches 
back to the proud shire in England that bears it; a name 
that reaches into the noble crowd that overflowed the jail 
and filled the Guild Hall in Norwich because they would not 
accept a ritual prepared for them by bishops without their 
consent. Nancy Hanks, the most neglected woman in Amer- 
ican history, was a gentle lady by descent. Thomas Lincoln, 
the carpenter, though early orphaned in the wild woods by 
a treacherous Indian's bullet, was man enough to rescue his 
fortune from the bottom of the Ohio River; to build with his 
own hands five or more homes; and with his axe and whip- 
saw convert the sycamore tree into lumber, and the lumber 
into the coffin that was to encase the perishable portion of 
the wife that bore to the world the noblest of Presidents, 
the greatest American. 

The same day that the child was born in that log cabin 
without floor in the wild woods of a new country, the child 
of humble parents, without tradition and without culture, 
there w^as born another babe in a stately English home around 
which gathered the inherited traditions of respectability, cul- 
ture and accumulated wealth. He was the child of favored 
ancestry, born to financial ease as the other was to poverty. 
He was born to the school, college and university privilege. 
According to his own estimate, he had too many of the oppor- 
tunities that w-ere denied to the child of the backwoodsman, 
but he, too, was stirred with the divine passion which he as 
little understood as did the lad of the clearings. He, too, 
was moved with the thirst for knowledge, felt the sublimity 
of nature, rejoiced in the solitudes of the forest and heard 
the cry of the depressed. It is a long social distance from 
the voyager on Her Majesty's ship the Beagle, equipped 
with all the appliances and comforts then known to science. 



THE MADISON COMMEMORATION 411 

to the raft that floated down the Mississippi River with its 
load of such truck as pioneers had to barter — 

"Tell Nancy to make me twelve instead of eight shirts. Tell Ed- 
ward to send me up in my carpet-bag (he can slip the key in the bag 
tied to some strings) my slippers, a pair of lightish walking shoes, 
my Spanish books, my new microscope (about six inches long and 
three or four deep) which must have cotton stuffed inside; and my 
geological compass." 

So wrote the English boy to his sister. The voyager of the 
Mississippi was barefooted. A coonskin cap, buckskin 
breeches for cold, and a blue jeans jumper for hot days, con- 
stituted his wardrobe. 

How wide the distance between these twin children of 
destiny, thrown out of the tardy womb of time in one day 
and offered as one gift, measureless and incomparable, of 
time to eternity. One of these became a great prophet of 
nature, the other a great prophet of human nature. One 
delved deep into the secrets of the life in plant and animal; 
the other sank his plummet into the profounder depths of the 
human heart. One, by slow and patient search sought out 
the secrets of life; and the other, by bold adventure, sought 
to measure and advance the social forces that make for 
human weal and human liberty. The one, when a boy at 
the University of Edinburgh, surmised that he would never 
need to earn, and so his interest in medicine as a calling ran 
low. He attributed his subsequent achievements to the fact 
that he never had to agonize for bread. Says John Fiske in 
this connection : 

"A man of science should never be called upon to earn a living, 
for that is a wretched waste of energy in which the highest intel- 
lectual power is sure to suffer serious detriment and runs a risk of 
being frittered away into hopeless ruin." 

The other lad knew all the bitterness of poverty and the 
anxiety of wants. 

These twins of destiny climbed the heights of fame to- 
gether. Both won the crown that belongs to helpers of men, 



412 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

servants of truth. Let no one ask which service was more 
acceptable to God or of most value to man, for the wide reach 
of human need calls for both services, and history will place 
upon the brow of each the radiant crown that belongs to 
those who have broken fetters, and humanity will glory in 
the freedom bought through the vicarious sufferings of both. 
One broke the shackles of ignorance and bigotry, which chain 
the mind ; the other, the cruel fetters that bind the limbs and 
make marketable property of men and women. One heard 
the sobs of the slave calling in Brazil, and the other's heart 
waxed hot over the humiliations of the human auction-block 
in New Orleans. Each in his own way became an emancipator 
of men. 

As yet the circle of human development is so broken that 
these twins of destiny must needs be born far apart though 
at the same moment of time. But when humanity becomes 
full orbed, may we not believe that it will produce in a 
single personality the patience of the one with the eloquence 
of the other; give to one life the culture of the universities 
and the health of the backwoodsman, so that the man of 
science will not repine in his old age, as this one did, over 
the loss of his relish for poetry, the estrangement from his 
companions of youth, Milton, Wordsworth, and Shelley; and 
the man of social science, the statesman and the leader, will 
not always be impaled upon the cross of poverty, distrust, 
suspicion, and envy, and at the last wear the martyr's 
crown ? 

Said the great master of science : 

"I never turn one inch out of my course to gain fame; I feel no 
remorse for having committed any great sin, but I have often regretted 
that I have not done more good direct to my fellow creatures." 

Said the great Commoner: 

"Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith . . . 
dare to do our duty." 

On this one hundredth anniversary, let us seek the sensi- 
tive conscience, and the stalwart, that will lead us on to the 
heights that will make us worthy successors of these inspired 



THE MADISON COMMEMORATION 413 

prophets of progress which God sent to the world in one 
marvellous creative impulse, through the gates of birth, on 
the twelfth day of February, 1809, — Charles Darwin and 
Abraham Lincoln. 

But, young men and women, let us beware how we waste 
this day in mere retrospect, lest in our attempt to honor 
the great debaters, we trail their banners in the dust. We 
belie our flattering words if, after half a century, we still 
mouth the words of brotherhood in the presence of a dark 
or yellow skin; if, in spite of the five illuminating decades, 
we still wince in the presence of the inexorable logic of the 
Declaration of Independence which, like the relentless mills 
of God, grinds into powder the conceits of birth, station or 
other class distinctions. 

Let us beware lest we split the sun-clear rays of Jefferson, 
Paine, and Lincoln in the cracked lens of social cowardice, 
commercial anxieties, and political half-heartedness as we 
still cry, ''Not yet! Not yet!" 

They who would be eligible to a place in the ranks of the 
"Lincoln Wide- Awakes" of to-day must believe that the vir- 
tues of the Declaration of Independence meant what they said 
and said what they meant ; must believe that the brotherhood 
of man includes all races, colors, and conditions of men, and 
that a "government of the people, by the people, for the 
people" can be perpetuated only by heroic acceptance of this 
logic and a sublime consecration to this ideal. The pride 
of party, the greed of office, the dread of change, and a solici- 
tation for prosperity, disqualify men to-day, as fifty years 
ago, from becoming torchbearers in the advancing columns 
of democracy. 

Lincoln's appeal was to ballots, not to bullets. We may 
not now lament the bullets, for who "v^dll state the price of 
freedom to a single human soul, however black and illiterate, 
in terms of dollars or of mortality? But the bullets were in- 
cidental and lamentable ; the ballots are perpetual and in- 
evitable. The battle begun in 1855 is not yet ended. The 
logic of Lincoln calls for a liberated, heroic, extended, and 
purified ballot. As you would love and serve the country 



414 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

he redeemed, you must preserve the sanctities of the ballot 
box, magnify the civic holiness and freedom of election day ; 
you must restrain the vicious and invite the virtuous ballot 
in the hand of rich and poor, black and white, male and 
female. For the right of the governed to a voice in the gov- 
ernment is dependent not upon sex, sect, or color, but upon 
intelligence, honor, and the willingness to serve the larger 
entity — the public and its weal. 



THE DENVER COMMEMORATION 



THE DENVER COMMEMORATION 

THE Denver Centenary celebration was a notable one, 
starting in at the State House in the morning, the Gen- 
eral Assembly suspending business and holding special exer- 
cises in joint session, to which the public was invited. Admis- 
sion to the lower floor was reserved for the members of the 
Legislature and their friends, and a portion of the gallery was 
reserved for members of the Grand Army of the Republic and 
their wives ; but the rest of the house was thrown open to the 
public. Fine addresses were delivered by the Hon. John F. 
Shafroth, Governor of Colorado, and by Senator-Elect Charles 
J. Hughes, Jr. The exercises were very impressive, being 
opened by an Invocation by the Chaplain of the Senate, the 
Eeverend P. T. Ramsey, followed by the vested boys' choir of 
St. Mark's Church, in a processional. A chorus of children 
from the Denver public schools, under the direction of Pro- 
fessor Whiteman, sang patriotic airs, and the Washington 
Post Veteran Vocal Club had a place upon the programme. 
The Emancipation Proclamation was read by the Clerk of the 
Senate, M. J, Smith, and Lincoln's Gettysburg Speech was 
read by the Reading Clerk of the House, Frank Leary. The 
Benediction was pronounced by the Chaplain of the House. 

This observance of the day was followed in the afternoon 
by an imposing military parade, in which marched, side by 
side, aged veterans of the Civil War, regular army troops, and 
men of the National Guard. The parade ended at the vast 
Denver Auditorium, into whose walls twelve thousand people 
had crowded to offer tribute to the memory of Lincoln. Here, 
taking part in the great chorus of national airs, were one 
thousand school girls in white ; behind them ranged the gray- 
haired veterans of the Civil War ; and, still beyond, the blue 
uniforms of the national standing army. Each company of 
the parade carried its flag into the hall, while hundreds of 
27 417 



118 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

small flags waved in the hands of spectators. At this vast 
mass meeting, Governor Shafroth was again one of the orators. 
Other noted speakers upon the programme were Mrs. Sarah 
Piatt Decker, Ex-President of the National Federation of 
Woman's Clubs; E. L. Stirman of Beauregard Post, Veterans 
C. S. A. ; and Joseph Farrand Tuttle, Jr. 

Many of the city schools held Lincoln Day exercises on the 
afternoon of Thursday, February 11, and on the morning of 
Friday, February 12. The town was lavishly decorated in its 
business section, the streets being draped with bunting and 
made bright with flags. 

The Grand Army veterans held a special celebration on the 
evening of February 12, which was in charge of all the Posts 
of the city ; numerous auxiliary societies being present. This 
meeting had the flavor of the old War time, with the bitter- 
ness abstracted. The old time patriotic airs were sung, full 
of the memory of the days of the Blue and the Gray. 

The Denver Centenary celebration was one of the most en- 
thusiastic in the country, and was participated in by the en- 
tire population. The events of the Centenary Day in Den- 
ver proved that the proclamation of Governor Shafroth and 
of Mayor Spear, regarding the day's fitting celebration, had 
found unreserved and enthusiastic response in the heart of 
every citizen. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN: THE PERFECT RULER OP 

MEN 

JOSEPH FARRAND TUTTLE, JR. 

IT is said that when the sun is at its zenith, the huge tow- 
ering form of Mont Blanc is reflected in a little pool at 
its base. Even so is the great Abraham Lincoln in our hearts 
to-day. We love him not only as the great President, the 
great statesman, the great martyr, the great Emancipator 
of a race whose representatives here in this service to-day and 
all over the world, are bowing in loving worship at his shrine, 



THE DENVER COMMEMORATION 419 

but we love him because he is the great Master of men — the 
Perfect Ruler of men — who in his humble birth and in his 
magic power to charm the hearts of men, has made all the 
dearer to us the story of Bethlehem's wayside inn two thou- 
sand years ago. 

As those three swarthy lords from the Orient hills paid 
their loving homage to the Child in the manger that first 
Christmas morning, so there were ''wise men" at Washing- 
ton in 1860 who laid their gifts of gold, frankincense, and 
myrrh at the feet of Abraham Lincoln, the child of the 
West. 

I suppose the most powerful body of men ever associated 
in American history, was President Lincoln's Cabinet in the 
first year of his administration. There was William H. 
Seward, the ablest diplomatist of his age; Edward Bates of 
IMissouri, that wily political chief of the old Whig school; 
Salmon P. Chase of Ohio, courtly, able, dignified, polished. 
These three men had been Lincoln's active opponents at Chi- 
cago for the nomination in 1860, and with the instinct of a 
perfect ruler he gathered them in his Cabinet, that no dis- 
sensions might arise among them to imperil the country. 
Then there were those great lawyers of Indiana, Caleb B. 
Smith, and John P. Upsher ; Montgomery Blair, the leader of 
the Maryland Bar; Gideon Welles of Connecticut; Edwin 
M. Stanton — a fiery eight-in-hand they were, some of them 
having never worked in harness before — that is having never 
held office before — with Abraham Lincoln on the box. They 
pulled up evenly on the bit at the start; but from the slack 
rein over their backs, each soon, to change the figure, imagined 
that around himself and his department, was whirling the 
grotesque Abraham Lincoln like an attending satellite. Sec- 
retary Seward was the first to have his mind disabused of 
this impression, as one day he received a touch with the whip 
on the flank. And he looked around and wondered if the 
man on the box meant it. He certainly did. 

It happened in this way. One day Mr. Seward said to 
Lincoln, "Now, you have this great war on your hands, 
you attend to home matters, and I will look after our foreign 



420 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

relations." And I can imagine Abraham Lincoln laughing 
one of those loud western prairie laughs of his, such as John 
Hay tells us of, as he said, "What a capital idea, Seward; 
what a team we '11 make! But say!" — as Mr. Seward was 
about leaving him, perhaps thinking in his heart what easy 
game he had made of Abraham Lincoln — "Don't forget to 
show me everything you receive, and particularly every- 
thing you send away. ' ' And that was all. 

Members of the Grand Army of the Republic, you will 
remember when you enlisted in 1861 and went down to 
bloody battlefields that the Republic might live, our relations 
were very much strained with England. The whole North 
was greatly shocked when a Cunard steamer arrived in New 
York one morning in the first week of May, 1861, with the 
published proclamation of Queen Victoria's recognition of 
the belligerency of the Confederate States. It was a severe 
blow to Lincoln and Seward, and it was then necessary for 
Mr. Seward to make good his suggestions and write his 
first important state paper, viz., a letter of instructions to 
Charles Francis Adams, our Minister at the Court of St. 
tTames. It was such a delicate task that he did not submit it 
in dictation to a clerk, but wrote it all out carefully with his 
own hand in thirteen closely written pages. Remembering 
Lincoln's little caution, he went to the White House with it, 
to have Lincoln put his official "0. K." upon it. Now the 
condition of that letter as Lincoln returned it always reminds 
me of what I used to hear the good people of Cambridge say 
of Rufus Choate's signature — "a gridiron struck by light- 
ning. ' ' Section after section of Mr. Seward 's letter had been 
stricken out; many words— even whole sentences — were 
erased, and new ones substituted; in some places the white 
spaces between the lines were entirely absorbed with the 
interlineation of new sentences; beautiful flowers of rhetoric 
were ruthlessly torn up by the roots. And then, what do 
you think ! This humble backwoodsman who had been 
cradled in a hollowed-out log — whose only schooling had 
been the winter evenings before the rude fireplace, where, 
in the absence of any candles or of old rags soaked in oil. 



o 




THE DENVER COMMEMORATION 421 

his mother had taught him and his father to read and 
write in the blaze of the spice-wood brush he had chopped up 
and thrown upon the fire, and where, stretched out upon 
the rough, gritty, dirt floor, he would cipher upon an old 
wooden shovel with a bit of charred wood picked from the 
fireplace, and say to himself "I '11 study and get ready, and 
then maybe the chance will come" — what do you think of 
this humble backwoodsman criticising the English of the 
accomplished, the versatile, the scholarly William H. Seward 
and actually showing him that in some places he had not 
even expressed his own meaning! 

William H. Seward had a very little body but a very big 
brain and a very big heart of love for his country, but it 
would seem as if the feathers were standing out at right 
angles all over his little body, when he wrote this sentence 
of a letter to Mr. Adams: "We intend to have a clear and 
simple record of every issue which may arise between us 
and Great Britain." Lincoln bracketed the paragraph and 
wrote in the margin, "Leave out." Mr. Seward wrote, 
"The President is surprised and grieved"; Lincoln changed it 
to "The President regrets." Mr. Seward referred to certain 
acts of Great Britain as "wrongful"; Lincoln changed it to 
' ' hurtful. ' ' ]\Ir. Seward made reference to certain explanations 
made by the British government; Lincoln wrote, "Leave out, 
because it does not appear that such explanations were de- 
manded" — just a jog to Mr. Seward's memory. Mr, Seward 
wrote learnedly of "the laws of nature"; Lincoln ran his 
pen through the expression "laws of nature," and wrote 
"our own laws" — good, honest United States laws were all 
Abraham Lincoln was looking for in those days. Mr. Seward 
wrote, "The laws of nations afford us an adequate and 
proper remedy, and we shall avail ourselves of it" — an im- 
plied threat, you see ; Lincoln wrote opposite the last part 
of the sentence in the margin "Out." Mr. Seward elaborated 
a thought in seven particular w^ords, and Lincoln ran his pen 
through one, two, three, four, five, six of those words and left 
only one word as having sufficient carrying power to designate 
Mr. Seward's meaning. Mr. Seward wrote "Europe atoned 



422 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

by forty years of suffering for the crime Great Britain had 
committed"; and Lincoln changed the crime to "error." 

Mr. Seward must have had a whole basketful of chips on 
his shoulder when he wrote this sentence, which if allowed 
to remain, would undoubtedly have precipitated a war with 
Great Britain : 

"When this act of intervention is distinctively performed, we from 
that hour shall cease to be friends and become once more, as we have 
twice before been forced to be, enemies of Great Britain." 

It is interesting to see how Lincoln tried to save a little out 
of the wreck of this paragraph, to save Mr. Seward's feel- 
ings, but he finally gave it up, and obliterated the whole 
paragraph. And so all through this remarkable state paper, 
the great master of rhetorical art, with rare literary dis- 
crimination and fine appreciation of the shadings of words, 
extracted the sting of implied censure out of Mr. Seward's 
words. 

Now, Charles Francis Adams, with that letter as originally 
written by Mr. Seward, would have been a bluffer and a 
bully, with his mouth full of threats, before the English 
court. But with it, as corrected by this log cabin genius of 
'belles-lettres, he was a far different man. He read that 
letter as if it had been his Bible, till he became saturated 
through and through with the spirit of Abraham Lincoln. 
From it he learned to be tactful, patient, long-suffering, 
"hoping all things, enduring all things," having the power 
and gift of silence, the power of saying nothing when there 
was nothing to say, or rather, like the great Master at Wash- 
ington, of saying nothing that had better be left unsaid — 
qualities he sorely needed for a great trial that was to come. 

At that time, at Birkenhead on the Mersey, just opposite 
Liverpool, two powerful armored cruisers were being built 
by private British capital, destined, so Mr. Adams' secret 
agents informed him, to be delivered to the Confederacy at 
a certain secret island in the West Indies, and there to be 
turned loose to hany and scourge the commerce of the 
United States from the high seas, as the Alabama and Shen- 



THE DENVER COMMEMORATION 423 

andoah did two years later. There was no more critical 
moment in the Civil War. Intervention or non-intervention 
on the one hand, and a war between the United States and 
Great Britain on the other, all depended on the wisdom of 
Charles Francis Adams, three thousand miles away from 
his home government and instructions, and with no Atlantic 
cable between the two countries at that time. It was for this 
moment that the Perfect Ruler at Washington had corrected 
that letter, whose wise, noble, and large spirit were so in- 
carnated in the bearing of Mr. Adams, that finally the British 
ministers, wise men also with gifts in their hands, made this 
fair proposition to Mr. Adams : "If you will deposit one mil- 
lion pounds sterling with the British government as indem- 
nity against possible suits that may be instituted against it 
by these private capitalists, we will not allow these ships to 
sail." 

When Mr. Adams returned to his office that day, there 
was a knock at his office door, and upon opening it he looked 
into the face of a man whose name, at the man's request, he 
refused to divulge to the day of his death— a fellow Massa- 
chusetts citizen, a banker in London. And he said to Mr. 
Adams, "I know all about it. Here are one million pounds 
sterling in gold certificates deposited in various banks in 
London. Deposit them to the credit of the United States." 
A few days afterwards, Mr. Adams deposited those particu- 
lar one million pounds sterling with the British government 
as the indemnity they had asked, and those two armored 
cruisers never sailed from the banks of the Mersey. The 
swords that had been unsheathed in America and England, 
were returned to their scabbards, because the pen of Abra- 
ham Lincoln was mightier than the sword. 

As I think of Charles Francis Adams in those critical 
moments at the English court, I always think of w^hat the 
King said to his wise counsellors after he had cast Shadrach, 
Meshach, and Abednego into the fiery furnace, "Did not 
we cast three men into the fiery furnace, and behold I see 
four men walking there, and the form of the fourth is like 
unto the Son of God?" Oh! it was Abraham Lincoln walk- 



424 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

ing with Charles Francis Adams before the English court 
in those troublous days of 1861 ! 

But how about that other wheel horse of that team, that 
fiery, mettlesome creature, Edwin M. Stanton? Would the 
man on the box dare to touch him with the whip — nay, would 
he dare even to allow the silken lash to rest upon his back 
ever so lightly? The beginning of the acquaintance and 
the subsequent friendship of these two men for each other, 
is to me the great romance of the Civil War period, and I 
believe that around it will be woven the great American his- 
torical novel. About 1857 Cyrus H, McCormick, of Chicago, 
brought suit against a man by the name of Manney for alleged 
infringement of the McCormick Harvester Reaper patent 
rights. The latter engaged Lincoln to defend. The case 
was tried in the United States District court at Cincinnati, 
and without consulting Lincoln as senior counsel, the parties 
there employed as local counsel a man by the name of Edwin 
M, Stanton. It pained Lincoln not a little. Stanton's treat- 
ment of Lincoln was brutal from start to finish ; and he 
frequently alluded to Lincoln as "my long-armed friend 
from Illinois." It was Lincoln's right as senior counsel to 
make the closing legal arguments in the ease. Of course he 
knew that the great George H. Harding of Philadelphia 
would make the closing mechanical argument. Lincoln for 
months had been preparing that final argument in the case, 
as a door he would throw open to make himself more widely 
known in the United States. But he listened in vain for 
Stanton to suggest that he, LincolB,^:q^e that argument ; and 
finally, to relieve the embarrassment, was obliged to sug- 
gest that Stanton make that closing argument. To his 
great chagrin and mortification, Mr. Stanton eagerly ac- 
cepted that suggestion. It was a very great disappointment 
to Lincoln. Don't you remember those beautiful words 
written of Abraham Lincoln, by Ralph Waldo Emerson? 
"His heart was as big as the world, but it could not hold 
the memory of a wrong." Lincoln went away from Cincin- 
nati with no resentment in his heart. 



THE DENVER COMMEMORATION 425 

Members of the Grand Army of the Republic, you will 
remember, wherever you were — on the march, in the camp, 
or on the bloody battlefield in November, 1861 — that in that 
month occurred the Trent affair — that affair when Captain 
Wilkes with the United States man-of-war, the San Jacinto, 
threw a shot across the bows of the British mail steamer, 
the Trent, in the Carribean Sea, hove her to, and forcibly 
took from her decks the two Commissioners, Mason and 
Slidell, then on their way to represent the Confederacy at 
the Courts of Great Britain and France respectively. Lin- 
coln, great lawyer that he was, deemed it a very illegal 
procedure, and would gladly have given them up could he 
have done so. He was opposed in his views by every mem- 
ber of his Cabinet, equally great lawyers though they all 
were. One morning Salmon P. Chase, Secretary of the 
Treasury, called upon Lincoln to make a casual remark as 
he was leaving the room : ' ' Mr. Lincoln, Stanton is in town, 
and he says the United States has the clearest right to detain 
those men. Mason and Slidell, in Fort Warren, Boston har- 
bor." It greatly interested Lincoln, and he asked that Mr. 
Stanton call, and put that opinion in writing. Mr. Stanton 
called the next morning and did as Lincoln requested, and 
just as he was leaving the room, Lincoln laid his great, 
brawny hand upon his shoulder. It was the one supreme, 
psychological moment of the whole Civil War. And this 
was the situation : Stanton was of the opposite school of 
politics from Lincoln ; he was not even a War Democrat at 
that time; he had been the Attorney-General of the United 
States under President James Buchanan ; he had unmercifully 
criticised the first year of President Lincoln's administra- 
tion; he had gone so far in his bitter hostility to Lincoln 
as to disrespectfully refer to him as "the great northern ape" 
— and Lincoln knew it all. But, charmer that he was of the 
hearts of men, Lincoln said, "Stanton, it makes no difference 
to me what you think of me personally, but your country 
has need of your services in my Cabinet. Will you accept 
the portfolio of the War Department ? ' ' And Stanton broke 



426 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

down, and asked for a day to consider the matter. He ac- 
cepted, remained with Lincoln to the close of the War, and 
became the greatest War Secretary the world has ever known. 

Their relations with each other were very peculiar. No 
two natures more antipodal, not only in their mental tem- 
peraments, but in their physical appearance, ever met. 
Stanton was a short, stocky, John Morrissey kind of a man, 
with his fighting face and broad shoulders; Lincoln was tall, 
gaunt, spare, angular. Stanton was grim, brusque, blunt, 
often savage in his intercourse with men ; Lincoln was always 
mild and gentle. Stanton was silent, secretive, often with- 
holding telegrams at important crises; Lincoln was forgiv- 
ing, open, frank, and cordial. Stanton was solemn, austere, 
severe in his ideals; Lincoln was laughter-loving. Stanton 
absolutely saw no good in any man who had once proved 
recreant to his trust; Lincoln was always saying "give the 
man another chance." 

It was upon the question of pardoning so many soldiers, 
that these two great men battled royally with each other, 
for supremacy. It had been a running fight for four years, 
but permit me to say that Mr. Stanton was doing all the 
running. A few days before the War closed, Mr. Stanton 
made his last great stand. Senator Henderson of Missouri 
was looking over papers on his desk, and there found papers 
relating to the pardon of a Confederate soldier by the name 
of Vaughn — a spy who had been taken within the Union 
lines with the goods on him. He was tried by three differ- 
ent courts-martial, found guilty each time, and was at St. 
Louis awaiting execution of his sentence. Mr. Henderson 
carried the matter to Lincoln, but was informed by him that 
it was in Mr. Stanton's department. Mr. Henderson saw 
Mr. Stanton, who informed him that the case had been tried 
three times, and that he would not open it, and broadly 
hinted that he would be much obliged to him if he would 
not meddle with affairs in his department. Mr. Henderson 
then went to Lincoln with all the papers. The kind-hearted 
President put on those old-fashioned, big-disced "specs," as 
he always called them, and commenced to wade through the 



THE DENVER COMMEMORATION 427 

voluminous testimony of those three trials, to find some legal 
loophole of escape. There was none, because the iron Sec- 
retary Stanton and his equally iron Judge-Advocate-Gen- 
eral, Joseph Holt, had drawn up those papers. Lincoln at 
last jerked off his "specs," and said, "Now, Henderson, 
what 's the use of killing this man ? There will come no good 
in it of discipline to the armies of the United States, as 
Stanton says, because in a few days there will be no armies 
of the United States. They all will have melted back into 
the walks of civic life. This man is a good deal better man 
for us above ground, than under ground. There has been 
too much spilling of blood ; w-e must begin to save some of 
it now. You go back and tell Stanton that he must open 
this case." When Mr. Henderson reported this to Mr. Stan- 
ton, there was an explosion at the War Office. The air was 
blue and sulphurous from the fierce unevangelical tenns Mr. 
Stanton was using, as he said, "You go back and tell Abra- 
ham Lincoln that I will not open that case, even for him as 
President." Mr. Henderson reported this at the White 
House. And then Lincoln, the man with the sad, haunting, 
melancholy, patient face— that face in which Mrs. Mary 
Shipton Andrews says there seemed to be the "suffering of 
all the sins of the world" — went to the corner of the room 
and took down the old gray shawl, and threw it over his 
shoulders. Oh, the poetry and romance of that old gray 
shawl of Abraham Lincoln! How often during those four 
years had he thrown it over his shoulders, and carefully 
closed the door of the White House after him at midnight, 
when all supposed him asleep, and walked down that lonely 
path to the War Office to get the latest news from you, 
members of the Grand Army of the Republic at the front, or 
to see if here was not some case where, by writing that magic 
word "pardon," he could bring gladness to some poor, suf- 
fering wife and children; he always said he slept better if he 
could do that. He hung up the old, gray shawl upon arriving 
at the War Office, on the top of a particularly high door, 
where he always hung it. When Mr. Stanton returned to the 
room, he caught sight of the old gray shawl, and knew what 



428 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

was in store for him. Man of hot, Celtic, fighting blood 
that he was, he rushed impetuously into the room to have 
the first word or round with Lincoln, as he said — and Oh ! 
this old wheel horse of the team is rearing and plunging 
violently now. "I will not open this case, even for you as 
President!" Lincoln looked upon Stanton most longingly 
and lovingly even as it is said the Christ looked at the dis- 
ciple John and loved him. He knew that Stanton was only 
fighting now to save his pride; he knew that Edwin M. 
Stanton loved him more than he loved any other human being, 
and he merely said, so tenderly and soothingly, as he took 
down the old gray shawl, "Well, Stanton, I guess you '11 
have to do it this time," and the great battle was over for- 
ever. 

A few days after, John Wilkes Booth fired the bullet that 
ploughed its way through the brain of Abraham Lincoln. 
They carried the unconscious President across the street, 
laid him upon the bed, and held loving vigil at the bedside all 
that night. During the night the most alarming rumors 
startled Washington — General Grant had been killed in 
New York! Vice-President Johnson had been murdered,- 
Salmon P. Chase had been assassinated; William H. Seward 
was barely alive from the murderous dagger-wounds of an 
assassin — till it seemed as if the government of the United 
States was being literally stabbed to its death that night. 
With these reports flying around Washington, every one 
seems to have lost his head that night but Edwin M. Stanton, 
and grandly did he prove himself to be the man of the hour. 
As if he had received a wireless from Abraham Lincoln, fast 
disappearing in the mists of the deep valley, "The country, 
Stanton, the country," Stanton, shortly after midnight, went 
into a little room adjoining the one where the President lay 
dying, called in his Assistant Secretary of War, Charles A. 
Dana, with a corps of telegraphers, and dictated orders, as 
Mr. Dana says, "necessary to carry on the government." 
Stanton sent telegrams to all the Generals in the field, South, 
West, and Southwest ; then to all the great cities of the North ; 
then to all the country where there were wires to carry them 



THE DENVER COMMEMORATION 429 

— telegrams of hope, assurance, and confidence that though 
the beloved President was dying, the Republic would live! 
Edwin M. Stanton had laid his iron hand upon our country 
that night, and when the sun walked "forth with steps of 
fire" from the golden gates that morning of April fifteenth, 
1865, the government at "Washington was safe. 

But all that night the beautiful life of Abraham Lincoln 
was gradually ebbing itself away, till, at twenty-two minutes 
after seven o'clock that morning of April fifteenth, 1865, 
Surgeon-General Barnes, who had been sitting upon the bed 
all night with the dear hand of Abraham Lincoln in his, 
suddenly announced the last beat of the pulse. In the solemn, 
the awful hush of that moment, when all realized that the 
beautiful spirit of Abraham Lincoln had taken its return 
flight to God, Edwin M. Stanton — and his words shall be the 
city of Denver's tribute of affection to his memory to-day — 
Edwin M. Stanton w^alked to the bedside, and, affectionately 
stroking the face of his dead Chief with both his hands and 
wetting the silent, upturned face with his tears, said, between 
his sobs, "Here lies the most perfect ruler of men the world 
has ever known. ' ' 



THE WASHINGTON COMMEMORATION 



THE WASHINGTON COMMEMORATION 

AT Washington, the nation's capital, the day was fittingly 
observed, although the President, Vice-President, and 
many other of the prominent figures in the life of the Capital 
were upon the programmes of celebrations in other parts of 
the country. 

In the House of Representatives, on Thursday, February 
11, the Hon. Henry Sherman Boutell of Illinois delivered a 
memorial address, while on the Centenary Day itself, Mr. 
Boutell read Lincoln's Gettysburg Address from the Speaker's 
chair ; Representative Frank M. Nye delivering an address on 
Lincoln. 

The Senate passed a joint Resolution declaring the Cen- 
tenary Day a special legal holiday in the District of Colum- 
bia, and in the Territories of Alaska, Arizona, New Mexico, 
and Hawaii, and authorizing the President to issue a Proclam- 
ation to this effect. At all of the schools of the city, com- 
memorative exercises took place; and celebrations were held 
by the United States Historical Society, the Grand Army of 
the Republic, and other organizations. One of the most no- 
table observances of the day was the morning celebration at 
Howard University, a University for colored students. Here 
Hon. James R. Garfield, Secretary of the Interior, presided, 
representing the Government, as patron ex-officio of the Board. 
The speakers of the day were Hon. Joseph G. Cannon, Speaker 
of the House of Representatives, and Gen. J. Warren Kiefer. 
Speaker Cannon was received with a tremendous hand-clap- 
ping and cheering, which persisted throughout his inspiring 
speech. The demonstration ended with what is known to the 
students as the "Howard clap" — a rhythmical hand-clapping 
which ends with a shout. Gen. Kiefer made the time inter- 
esting with personal recollections of the days of the Civil 
War. One of the features of the meeting was the presentation 
28 433 



434 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

of a painting by C. T. Webber — "The Underground Rail- 
way." This picture depicts the aiding of a fugitive slave, and 
contains the portraits of Levi and Catherine Coffin, who, dur- 
ing their life-time, assisted more than three thousand slaves 
to escape from bondage, and whom Harriet Beecher Stowe im- 
mortalized in her "Uncle Tom's Cabin," under the names of 
Simeon and Rachel Holladay — the Quaker couple who helped 
Eliza Harris to freedom. The presentation of the picture was 
made by "William E. Curtis, the famous war correspondent. 
Another presentation was that of a bronze tablet containing 
the Gettysburg Address, which was presented to the University 
by the Lincoln Educational League, of which Levi P. Morton 
and William Dean Howells are prominent members. 

At 3 :30 in the afternoon, the mass-meeting of the day was 
held at the new Masonic Temple. This meeting was directly 
under the charge of Henry B. P. I\Iacfarland, Commissioner of 
the District of Columbia. Cooperating with him were spe- 
cial committees from the Chamber of Commerce and the Board 
of Trade. The result was a meeting vivid with interest, bring- 
ing together all classes and conditions of men in one united 
tribute to our old War President. 

Upon the platform, supporting Commissioner Macfarland, 
sat the former Commissioners of the District, the various com- 
mittees in charge, and the heads of the Civil War societies. 

The speakers were men of national prominence, among them 
being the Hon. Joseph G. Cannon, Speaker of the House of 
Representatives; Thomas Nelson Page, the Southern writer; 
former Senator John B. Henderson, who penned the Four- 
teenth Amendment of the Constitution abolishing slavery; 
Joaquim Nabuco, Ambassador of Brazil; Justice Wendell 
Phillips Stafford, of the Supreme Court of the District of 
Columbia ; the Rev. J. G. Butler, who was Chaplain in several 
hospitals in the city during the War ; and the Rev. Dr. Abram 
Simon, Rabbi of the Washington Hebrew Congregation. The 
Invocation was offered by Edward Everett Hale, Chaplain of 
the Senate. Bishop D. J. O 'Council, Rector of the Catholic 
University, pronounced the Benediction. 

The speech of Thomas Nelson Page was a tribute of the 



THE WASHINGTON COMMEMORATION 435 

South to the man who stood at the head of the North in the 
time of dissension. J\Ir. Page expressed his appreciation of 
the honor shown him in being asked ' ' as the Southern man, to 
speak on this notable occasion, to celebrate, here in the Capital 
of the nation, where he achieved his great and abiding fame, 
the Centenary of the birth of the man w^ho, more than any- 
other man or group of men, saved the nation." The closing 
words of the address of Mr. Page, speaking of the South — 
"But the passing years are sweeping away the mist that ob- 
scured her vision, and she is coming more and more to see 
Lincoln as he was, as a great-hearted and large-minded man 
who, had he lived, might have been her defender in the hour 
of her greatest trial — whose last acts were acts of kindness, 
and whose last words were words of good will and peace to- 
ward the South as well as the North" — were enthusiastically 
applauded by the great gathering w^hich included in its midst 
a number of Confederate veterans. 

In the evening of the Centenary, the Military Order of the 
Loyal Legion of the United States, Commandery of the Dis- 
trict of Columbia, gave a banquet, about four hundred men 
sitting do^\Ti to the table ; while the balcony was crowded with 
women who came to look on at the scene of festivity. The 
programme contained the names of men of national prom- 
inence. 

On the same evening, the Central Labor Union met at Odd 
Fellows' Hall in honor of the day, and here addresses were 
made by well known statesmen, and many labor leaders, 
including Samuel Gompers, President of the American Feder- 
ation of Labor, and Miss Phoebe Couzins, the Womans' Suf- 
frage leader. 



LINCOLN AND THE CHARACTER OP AMERICAN 
CIVILIZATION 

HON. JOAQUIM NABUCO 

IT was not without much hesitation that I accepted the in- 
vitation to speak by the side of the distinguished men 
chosen to address you on this great occasion, but when I was 
told that I would represent here the sentiment of Latin 
America, I felt that was a call I could not fail to answer. 

The presence at this place of any single foreign nation, in 
the person of its official representative, would be a sufficient 
acknowledgment that Lincoln belongs to all the world. But 
there are reasons why the other nations of this continent feel 
themselves more closely associated with him than the rest of 
the world, and why they owe him the greater gratitude after 
that of the United States. 

We are bound, indeed, to form with you a political moral 
unit, and no man, after "Washington, has done more than 
Lincoln to strengthen the magnet that attracts us to you. 
Washington created the American freedom; Lincoln puri- 
fied it. 

Personally, I owe to Lincoln, not only the choice, but the 
easy fulfillment of what I consider was my task in life, 
as it was the task of so many others — the emancipation 
of the slaves. Nobody, indeed, could say what would have 
been the struggle for abolition in Brazil, if, past the middle 
of the nineteenth century, a new and powerful nation had 
sprung up in America, having for its creed the maintenance 
and the expansion of slavery. Through what Lincoln did, 
owing to the great light he kindled for all the world with his 
Proclamation, we could win our cause without a drop of blood 
being shed. In fact, we won it in a national embrace — the 
slave-owners themselves, with the lavishness of their letters 

436 



THE WASHINGTON COMMEMORATION 437 

of manumission, emulating the action of the laws of freedom, 
successively enacted. 

Lincoln, like "Washington, is one of the few great men in 
history about whom the moral sense of mankind is not divided. 
His record is, throughout, one of inspiration. His part at 
the White House was that of the national Fate. To-day, when 
one looks from this distance of time to the fields of that terrible 
Civil War, one sees in them, not only the shortest cut, but 
the only possible road, to a common national destiny, I con- 
strue to myself that War as one of those illusions of life, in 
which men seem to move of their own free will, projected by 
a Providence intent on saving their nation from the course 
she was pursuing. Nobody can say what would have been 
the duration of slavery, if the Southern States had not acted 
as they did. By seceding, they doomed it to death and saved 
themselves. In that way the Secession, although a wholly 
different episode, will have had in the history of the United 
States the same effect that the secession of the people to the 
Sacred Mount had in the history of Rome, in the early period 
of the Republic — that is, that of cementing the national unity 
and of assuring the destiny of the nation for centuries of ever- 
widening power. 

Lincoln, with the special sense bestowed by the Author of 
that great Play, upon one entrusted with its leading part, 
saw distinctly that the South was not a nation, and that it 
would not think of being one, except during the hallucination 
of the crisis. If the South had been a nation, the North, 
with all its strength, would not have subdued it. Neither 
would the American people care to have a foreign nation 
attached to its side by conquest ; nor would a coerced nation, 
after such a bloody war, reenter the Union in the spirit of 
staying forever, as did the South, once the passion spent that 
moved it to secede. 

I believe such was the feeling of General Lee during the 
whole campaign; only he could not utter it, and the secret 
died with him. But only such a feeling could have kept his 
surrender free from all bitterness, as if he had only fought 
a duel of honor for the South. Nothing is so beautiful to me 



438 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

in the celebration of this first centenary of Lincoln, as the 
tributes of men who represent the noblest spirit of the South. 

I came here to say a word — I have said it. With the in- 
creased velocity of modern changes, we do not know what the 
w^orld will be a hundred years hence. For, surely, the ideals 
of the generation of the year 2000 will not be the same as 
those of the generation of the year 1900. Nations will then 
be governed by currents of political thought which we can 
no more anticipate than could the seventeenth century antici- 
pate the political currents of the eighteenth, which still in 
part sway us. But whether the spirit of authority — or that 
of freedom — increases, Lincoln's stoiy will ever appear more 
luminous in the amalgamation of centuries, because he su- 
premely incarnated both those spirits. And this veneration 
for Lincoln's memory, throughout the world, is bound more 
and more to centre in this city — which was the exclusive 
theatre of his glory, and which alone could reflect the anxieties 
and the elations of his heart during the whole performance 
of his great part in history — as holding the great preeminent 
title of being the place of his martyrdom. 

I am proud of having spoken here at his first Centennial 
in the name of Latin America. We all owe to Lincoln the 
immense debt of having fixed forever the fre3 character of 
American civilization. 



THE PHILADELPHIA COMMEMORATION 



THE PHILADELPHIA COMMEMORATION 

PHILADELPHIA had no official celebration of the day, 
there being no general Committee organized, but the ob- 
servances took place under private initiative, or under the 
auspices of the various organizations and societies of the 
city. It was estimated, however, that over half a million per- 
sons participated in the various memorial meetings and exer- 
cises. 

All of the schools observed the day with appropriate pro- 
grammes and special observances; there were elaborate exer- 
cises under the auspices of the Loyal Legion, Pennsylvania 
Commandery ; a commemorative programme by the University 
Extension Society; and an observance by the Philadelphia 
Association of Naval Veterans. 

The Historical Society had on exhibition the famous Lam- 
bert collection of Lincoln autographs and books, while at the 
rooms of The Union League was displayed a loan collection of 
rare prints and portraits, from the private collection of Major 
Lambert, who is known as possibly the greatest collector of 
Lincolniana in our country. 

The banquet held in the evening at The Union League, was 
perhaps the most notable celebration of the day. This was 
presided over by Mr. James F. Hope, President of the Club ; 
Major William H. Lambert, the speaker, lending wonderful 
significance to the day with his personal reminiscences of Lin- 
coln. The Marine Band from Washington furnished a musical 
programme, both afternoon and evening. 

The Grand Army Association of Philadelphia held a meet- 
ing at the Opera House, at which Henry Watterson made the 
address; and commemorative exercises under the auspices of 
the Grand Army of the Republic were held in the afternoon. 

441 



PRESERVER OP THE UNION— SAVIOUR OF THE 

REPUBLIC: REMINISCENCES OP ABRAHAM 

LINCOLN 

MAJOR WILLIAM H. LAMBERT 

AMONG the many associations that are met to commemo- 
rate the Centennial Anniversary of the birth of Abra- 
ham Lincoln, there is none that can rejoice in the honor done 
his name with greater fitness than The Union League of Phil- 
adelphia. 

The Union League owes its being to the earnest purpose 
to uphold his hands ; of it he was an Honorary member, and 
in acknowledging his election as such, he wrote, "The gen- 
erous approval of a portion of my fellow citizens, so intelligent 
and patriotic as those comprising your association, assures 
me that I have not wholly failed. ' ' 

Among the founders of the League were men who had early 
advocated his nomination for the Presidency, strenuously 
worked for his election, and heartily approved his administra- 
tion ; and when they united to form this organization they 
enrolled men of like sympathy and purpose, and The Union 
League became the prototype of many clubs emulous of its 
example. The League did not confine itself to mere verbal 
expressions of approbation, valuable and important as such 
evidences of sympathy and loyalty were, but it engaged 
actively and successfully in recruiting for the army, and, 
participating vigorously in the campaign for his renomination 
and reelection, was powerfully effective in securing the tri- 
umph at the ballot which ensured final victory in the field. 
Having steadfastly and energetically supported the great 
President, The Union League of right joins the chorus of 
thanksgiving and praise for the life, the character, and the 
work of Abraham Lincoln. 

United with the thousands who to-day commemorate the 
centenary of his birth, recalling all that we have heard and 
read concerning him, especially the many incidents of his 

442 



THE PHILADELPHIA COMMEMORATION 443 

life that for months preparatory to this day have been nar- 
rated in our newspapers and magazines, remembering how he 
shaped our history and enriched our literature, it is hard to 
realize how little known he was to the country at large prior 
to the assembling of the convention that nominated him for 
the presidency. 

He had served a single term in the national House of Repre- 
sentatives, he had been an unsuccessful candidate for the 
United States Senate in 1855, in the next year his name had 
been presented to the first National Convention of the Repub- 
lican Party as a candidate for the vice-presidency; again 
placed in nomination by his party for the Senate, he engaged 
with Stephen A. Douglas in a political debate the most mem- 
orable in our history outside the halls of Congress, and as 
a result of this debate he secured a majority of the popular 
vote of the State for the Republican candidates for the Legis- 
lature, but as the majority of the legislators chosen were for 
Douglas, Lincoln was a second time defeated in his aspiration 
for the Senate. The fame of the debate led a club of young 
men in the city of New York to invite Lincoln to lecture, and 
in compliance he made a remarkable address at the Cooper 
Institute, in the presence of a large audience, comprising 
some of the foremost members of the Republican Party. Be- 
cause of this address he was requested to deliver a series of 
speeches in the New England States. These speeches in New 
York and the East attracted the attention of men influential 
in the councils of the party, who, opposed to the more prom- 
inent candidates for the presidential nomination, were seeking 
a candidate who, in their judgment, would be more likely to 
be elected. 

Consideration of Lincoln's availability, the importunity of 
the Republican candidates for Governor in Pennsylvania and 
Indiana — both "October States," and supposedly doubtful — 
local antagonism to Seward and to Chase, and the intense ear- 
nestness of Lincoln's friends in Illinois and adjacent States, 
cooperated to secure for him the nomination. 

Seemingly, Lincoln had made so little impression upon the 
people at large, that conservatives who deprecated the radical 



444 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

phrase of the "Irrepressible Conflict," and feared its effect 
upon voters, had apparently forgotten — if indeed they had 
known — that months before Seward had pronounced these 
objectionable words, Lincoln had declared, "A house divided 
against itself cannot stand; I believe this government cannot 
endure permanently half slave and half free." 

Despite efforts that have been made to controvert the state- 
ment, the truth is that for the moment the supreme fact of 
the Chicago Convention of 1860 "was the defeat of Seward 
rather than the nomination of Lincoln. It was the triumph 
of a presumption of availability over preeminence in intellect, 
and unrivalled fame." 

Elected to the presidency by a minority of the popular vote, 
his election followed by the threatened withdrawal of several 
States, the successful candidate might well be awed by the 
stupendous responsibility that awaited him. The months of 
suspense between his election and his inauguration were 
fraught with intense anxiety. In the hope of averting the 
threatened calamity many public meetings urged compromise 
and favored liberal concessions. Reaction appeared to be 
setting in, and many who had helped to elect him seemed 
to regret their success; but whoever else was shaken, Lincoln 
was not, and to his intimate friends gave assurance of his firm 
adherence to the principles that had triumphed in his election. 

In letters to Senator Trumbull, Lincoln wrote : 

"Let there be no compromise on the question of extending slavery— 
if there be, all our labor is lost, and ere long must be done again. 
. . . Stand firm. The tug has to come, and better now than any 
time hereafter." 

"If any of our friends do prove false, and fix up a compromise on 
the territorial question, I am for fighting again, that is all." "If it 
prove true (report that the forts in South Carolina will be surrendered 
by the consent of President Buchanan), I will, if our friends at Wash- 
ington concur, announce publicly at once that they are to be retaken 
after the inauguration. This will give the Union men a rallying cry, 
and preparations will proceed somewhat on this side as well as on the 
other." * 

* These passages were read by Major Lambert from the original auto- 
graph letters. 



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Fafsiniilc of Miiiiuscript 'I'rihutc IVoiii WctidoU l^hillips Stafford, Associate 
Jiustici! of the SuprcMiie Court, of the District of (.'ohiMil)ia 



THE PHILADELPHIA COMMEMORATION 445 

Meanwhile he steadily refrained from public utterance un- 
til he set forth from the home to which he was never to return 
alive. His touching farewell to his Springfield neighbors, 
and the series of addresses in reply to greetings from the 
several communities through which he passed on his journey 
to the national capital, plainly showed that he appreciated 
the weight of the burden he was about to assume, and so far 
encouraged the party that had elected him, but gave little 
evidence of special fitness for the work. In the light of after 
events, the assertion which he made in Independence Hall — 
that, rather than surrender the principles w^hich had been 
declared there he would be assassinated on the spot — is pre- 
eminent as an indication of the source and the courage of his 
political convictions; while the fact that at the time of its 
utterance he had been warned of a conspiracy to kill him, 
removes from these words any suspicion that they were spoken 
for rhetorical effect, and invests them with the solemnity of 
prophecy. The Inaugural Address of the new President was 
awaited with painful solicitude. Apprehension that, in the 
hope of averting disaster, he might yield somewhat of the 
principles upon which he had been elected; fear that, in 
retaliation for threats of disunion, he might determine upon 
desperate assaults on the rights of the revolted and threaten- 
ing States; mistrust that he might prove unequal to the 
nation's supreme exigency, combined to intensify anxiety. 

The address failed to satisfy extremists, either North or 
South, but the great body of loyal people were delighted with 
the manifest determination of the President to preserve, pro- 
tect, and defend the government he had sworn to uphold. 
But his solemn assurances that he would in no wise endanger 
the property, peace, and security of any section of the coun- 
try ; that it was his purpose to administer the government as 
it had come to him, and to transmit it unimpaired by any act 
of his to his successor ; and his appeal to the memories of the 
past, and to the common interests of the present, were alike 
powerless to recall the revolted States to their allegiance or 
to restrain the action of other States, bent on following their 
example. 



446 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Anticipating the inauguration of President Lincoln, the 
Southern Confederacy had been proclaimed, and its troops 
were arrayed against the authority of the United States, while 
the absence of efforts of repression seemed to indicate that 
the dissolution of the Union, so arrogantly declared by the 
States in rebellion, was to be accomplished. 

For weeks succeeding his inauguration, the President 
awaited the progress of events — the policy of laissez-faire 
seemed to have been adopted. Some tentative efforts were 
made to relieve the beleaguered forts within the limits of the 
insurgent territory, but apparently the nation was drifting to 
death. 

But the shot on Sumter wrought instant and wondrous 
change. However uncertain Abraham Lincoln may have been 
as to the method of maintaining the Union, his purpose to 
maintain it had been positively declared; and from the mo- 
ment the flag was fired upon, the method was no longer in 
doubt. The call of April 15, 1861, was the answer to the 
challenge of Charleston Harbor. We know now that the num- 
ber of men called forth was utterly inadequate to the work 
to be done, but the value of the call was less in the number of 
men it evoked than in the assertion that armed rebellion was 
to be confronted and the power of the nation was to be put 
forth for its own preservation, and the enforcement of the 
laws. 

Previous to his entrance upon the presidency, Lincoln had 
had no part in the administration of great affairs; he was 
destitute of experience in statecraft and he had no precedent, 
either in our own history or in that of other lands, to guide 
him. He had called to his Cabinet the chief of the leaders 
of the Republican Party, men whose great experience in public 
affairs and whose admitted ability and acquirements justified 
their selection, and might well indeed have induced him to 
submit to their direction ; but he realized that as President 
he could not, even if he would, transfer the obligation of his 
office. Whatever doubts may have existed in the minds of 
his advisers as to his purpose and fitness to accept the responsi- 
bilities of his office were soon dispelled, and it is evident that 



THE PHILADELPHIA COMMEMORATION 447 

the President dominated his administration from the beginning 
— when, in reply to the Secretary of State, who had advised 
a radical and startling change in the governmental policy, 
and had expressed his willingness to undertake its direction, 
Lincoln declared, "If this must be done, I must do it" — to 
the close — when he notified the Lieutenant-General, "You 
are not to decide, discuss, or confer upon any political ques- 
tions. Such questions the President holds in his own hands, 
and will submit them to no military conferences or conven- 
tions. ' ' 

In this connection, and as confirmatory of the President's 
control of affairs, the recently published letter of his private 
secretary, John Hay, is particularly interesting, as showing 
the impression made upon a qualified observer, and recorded 
at the time. Writing at Washington, under date August 7, 
1863, to his fellow secretaiy, Nicolay, Hay said : 

"The Tycoon is in fine whack. I have rarely seen him more serene 
and busy. He is managing this war, the draft, foreign relations, and 
planning a reconstruction of the Union all at once. I never knew 
with what tyrannous authority he rules the Cabinet until now. The 
most important things he decided and there is no cavil." 

The outbreak of hostilities presented to President Lincoln 
an opportunity not of his seeking, but of which he might well 
avail himself. However specious the plea of State rights, 
however disguised the chief motive which prompted the seces- 
sion of the revolting States, he knew, as the people knew, that 
slavery was the real cause of the Rebellion. He had long 
foreseen that the country could not permanently endure par- 
tially slave, partially free; he knew that slavery had been 
the basis of the controversies and dangers of the past. If 
tradition may be believed, in his early manhood he had de- 
clared that if ever he should have a chance, he would hit 
slavery hard, and now the chance had come. In 1837, with 
one other member of the Illinois Legislature, he had placed 
himself on record declaring his belief "that the institution of 
slavery is founded on both injustice and bad policy," and 
protesting against the passage of resolutions favoring it. 



448 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Slavery was attempting the destruction of the Republic, and, 
by its own appeal to arms, was offering an opportunity for a 
counter-blow which might forever destroy an institution whose 
malign influence had long controlled national affairs, and 
endangered the perpetuity of the nation. He was President 
and Commander-in-chief; in the party that had elected him 
were many thousands anxious for the proclamation of free- 
dom to the slave and insistent upon its issue. He had been 
the nominee of a party, but he was now the President of the 
United States, and neither hope of partisan gain nor personal 
gratification could swerve him from what he conceived to be 
the obligation of his oath. His conception of his duty was 
forcibly expressed in his letter to Horace Greeley, probably 
the most important of the many notable letters written by the 
President. Replying to the Editor's article accusing him of 
failure to meet the rightful expectations of twenty millions 
of the loyal people, Lincoln wrote from "Washington, under 
date of August 22, 1862 : 

"I have just read yours of the 19th, addressed to myself through 
The New York Tribune. If there be in it any statements or assump- 
tions of fact which I may know to be erroneous, I do not, now and 
here, controvert them. If there be in it any inferences which I may 
believe to be falsely drawn, I do not, now and here, argue against them. 
If there be perceptible in it an impatient and dictatorial tone, I waire 
it in deference to an old friend whose heart I have always supposed 
to be right. 

"As to the policy I 'seem to be pursuing,' as you say, I have not 
meant to leave anyone in doubt. 

"I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the 
Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored, the 
nearer the Union will be 'the Union as it was.' If there be those who 
would not save the Union unless they could at the same time save 
slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not 
save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I 
do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to 
save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If 
I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and 
if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I 
could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also 
do that. What I do about slavery and the colored race, I do because 
I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear be- 



THE PHILADELPHIA COMMEMORATION 449 

cause I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less 
whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall 
do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I 
shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors, and I shall adopt 
new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views. 

"I have here stated my purpose according to my view of oflBcial 
duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish 
that all men everywhere could be free." 

Twenty months later, in a letter to a citizen of Kentucky, 
in answer to his request for a statement of what had been 
said to the Governor of that State, the President wrote : 

"I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is 
wrong. I cannot remember when I did not so think and feel, and yet 
I have never understood that the presidency conferred upon me an 
unrestricted right to act officially upon this judgment and feeling. It 
was in the oath I took, that I would to the best of my ability, preserve, 
protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. I could 
not take the office without taking the oath. Nor was it my view 
that I might take an oath to get power, and break the oath in using 
the power. I understood, too, that in ordinary civil administration 
this oath even forbade me to practically indulge my primary abstract 
judgment on the moral question of slavery. . . , And I aver that, 
to this day, I have done no official act in mere deference to my ab- 
stract judgment and feeling on slavery." 

With clear view, and steadfast purpose, President Lincoln 
devoted his life to the preservation of the Union. To accom- 
plish this end, in the spirit of the great Apostle to the Gentiles, 
he made himself servant unto all, that he might gain the 
more. Subordinating self, personal prejudices and partisan 
feelings were not allowed to obtrude between him and his 
conception of the country's need. Ability to serve the cause 
M'as the essential qualification for high office and honor, and, 
outweighing other consideration, atoned for past or present 
personal objection. 

Early in 1862 he appointed as chief of the War Department 
a man of boundless zeal and energy, who had treated Lin- 
coln with marked discourtesy, had denounced his conduct of 
the War, and had freely expressed his dislike for him and 
doubt of his fitness — an appointment as sagacious and fortu- 



450 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

nate as it was magnanimous ; and he retained in his Cabinet 
the Secretary of the Treasury, whose own aspirations for 
the presidential nomination were well known to Lincoln, who 
wrote, ' ' Whether you shall remain at the head of the Treasury 
Department is a question which I will not allow myself to 
consider from any standpoint other than my judgment of the 
public service, and, in that view, I do not perceive occasion 
for a change." 

The War of 1861-1865 was no mere factional contest. It 
was a people's war, begun by a people jealous of its institu- 
tions, fearful of the wane of the power it had long wielded, 
distrustful of the new administration's assurances of non- 
intervention with the rights of States, and conscious that the 
limitation of slavery to the territory that it now occupied 
must eventually effect its extinction. The War was accepted 
by a people innocent of purpose to interfere with the "do- 
mestic institution" within State lines, and far from united 
in opinion about slavery, and though substantially opposed 
to its extension over the country's free domain, not agreed as 
to the best method of legislative treatment ; but one absolutely 
in love with the Union and in determination to maintain it. 
"One would make war rather than let the nation survive, 
and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. 
And the war came." 

Only the enlistment of the people on each of the contend- 
ing sides could have sustained so long a war of such magni- 
tude, and offered such heroic devotion as distinguished it. 
The President realized that his ability to make effective his 
oath to preserve the government was dependent upon the firm 
and continued support of the loyal people ; that he could lead 
them no faster and no further than they would follow, and 
that it was absolutely necessary to retain their confidence. 
His faith in the principles of the Declaration of Independence, 
his conviction that the people were the rightful source of all 
governmental power, had suffered no change by his elevation 
to the presidency. In an especial sense a man of the people, 
the restraint which kept him closely in touch with them was 







y 



^:^/S^^ 



THE WH ITE HOUSE 

V^A. S H I NGTON 



We nevor havw hud a man in [niLlAc life wh;OBe ubiibb of iuty 
v/as Btroiiger, whooe boaririf;; towarcl thonet with w)";or. fie ceme in 
contact, v;hether hie frien'la or [lOliticel opponentB, was charac- 
terized by a greatHr- senno of fairness tfiari Abrafian Lincoln. We 
never have had a nan in public life who took upon hlnt^elf uncom- 
plainingly the woes of the nation and suffereti in hia soul from 
the weight of ther, as he did. We never have had a nan in our 
history who had such a mixture of far-nightednesp , underetr.nding 
of people, cornnon senne, high senne of duty, power of inexorable 
logic and conflcienco in the p^^oodnena of God in worl'iinp out a 
righteous renult, aa thin great product of the noil of our country, 

One cannot road of him without loving him. One cannot think 
of hie Gtruggloo, of )\ia life and its tragic end, without weeping. 
One cannot stutiy hin efforts, his conacience, hlo heroinm, and hlo 
patriotinni, and t}ie burdena of bitter attack and calumny under 
which he suffered, and tl'ink of the jilace he now occupies in the 
hiotory of thin country, witliout a moral Insj^iratlon of the most 
stirring anci intense character. 




l'";icsiiiiil(' 1)1' 'i'ril)Ut(' Iron 



ilcul •r:itY 



THE PHILADELPHIA COMMEMORATION 451 

not unwillingly borne, but readily accepted as the condition 
under which he best could act with and for them. 

The acquisition of vast power, increasing with the prolonga- 
tion of the War, made no change in the simplicity of his 
character. Unhampered by conventionalities, indifferent to 
forms, he received his old-time friends with the freedom of 
their earlier intercourse, and was accessible to all who sought 
him. No visitor was too humble for his consideration, and 
if, in too many instances, the causes which received his atten- 
tion were too trivial to engage the thought of the Chief Mag- 
istrate of a great nation in its time of stress, the very fact of 
his willingness to see and hear all, endeared him to the people, 
who saw in him one of themselves — unspoiled by power, un- 
harmed by success. 

As no President before him had done, he confided in the 
people; and, in a series of remarkable letters and speeches, 
explained or justified his more important acts by arguments 
of simplest form, but marvellous strength. His frankness 
and directness of expression, his obvious sincerity and abso- 
lute patriotism, even, perhaps, as much as the force of his 
reasoning, compelled respect for his acts and enlarged the 
number and increased the faith of his strenuous supporters. 

The sympathetic audience which he gave to every tale of 
woe, his manifest reluctance to inflict the extreme penalty 
which violation of military law entailed, seemed at times to 
detract from the dignity of his high office, and prompted 
commanding officers to complain that the proper maintenance 
of discipline was rendered impossible by Lincoln 's sensibility ; 
but these characteristics strengthened his hold upon the people 
at home and in the army. In his profound sympathy, in his 
splendid courage, in his transparent honesty, in his patriotic 
devotion, in his simplicity of thought and manner — nay, in 
the very haggardness of feature, ungainliness of form, and 
homeliness of attire, he was the expression of a plain people 's 
hopes, and the embodiment of their cause. 

Here was neither Caesar nor Napoleon, but a popular leader, 
such as befitted a Republic destined to preserve its popular 



452 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

form, though its ruler wielded imperial power ; a leader whose 
highest ambition was to save the country and to transmit the 
government unimpaired to his successor. 

Generals, intoxicated with power and anticipations of suc- 
cess, might assert the country 's need of a dictator, and, appar- 
ently, be not unwilling to assume the role, but the President, 
without shadow of jealousy of any of his subordinates, 
shrewdly declared, * ' Only those generals who gain success can 
set up dictators. What I ask of you is military success; I 
will risk the dictatorship. ' ' 

The splendid manifestation of popular feeling which fol- 
lowed the assault upon Sumter might easily have caused the 
President to rely confidently upon popular support in his 
every effort to suppress the Kebellion ; the generous response 
to his early calls for troops might readily have assured him 
that the number of volunteers would exceed all needs, and 
have led him to expect the speedy end of the War ; but he was 
not deluded by the hope that the War would be of short 
duration ; he saw the necessity of preparation for a long strug- 
gle, and felt the importance of conserving all interests, and 
of securing the support of all who, however they may have 
differed in other respects, agreed in devotion to the Union. 
Hence he made concessions to the opinions of those who, while 
opposed to disunion, did not sympathize with his own views 
concerning slavery and its extension, "How a free people" 
would "conduct a long war" was a problem to be demon- 
strated, and President Lincoln was unwilling to alienate any 
who were faithful to the government, even though they dep- 
recated the occasion which had placed it in jeopardy. His 
sagacity and his observation had shown him how wavering 
were the currents of popular opinion, how readily popular 
enthusiasm could be quenched by disappointment and defeat, 
and how imperative it was for him to hold together all elements 
requisite to the successful prosecution of the War. 

Disappointed friends might inveigh against his caution 
and demand dismissal of leaders and change of policy; luke- 
warm supporters might withdraw their confidence, supersen- 
sitive observers might denounce heroic war measures as 



THE PHILADELPHIA COMMEMORATION 453 

invasions of personal or State rights ; but, despite harassment 
and annoyance and antagonism, unshaken in purpose, indomi- 
table in courage, the President moved steadily on. The de- 
fection of old friends and party associates might grieve him, 
the unjust accusations of nominal Unionists might rankle, 
but he could not be deflected from the line of his duty. 

He knew that other than purely military considerations 
might rightfully determine campaigns; that success in the 
field, though conducive to success at home and to ultimate 
triumph, was not the only essential ; and that to maintain the 
armies at the front it was imperative to sustain the sentiment 
of the people at home. From the broader outlook of the 
Capital, from his knowledge of the people directly, and 
through their chosen representatives, he appreciated, as the 
generals in the field could not, the indispensability of popular 
support as well as of military success. 

The President early gave evidence that he was willing to 
assume the gravest responsibilities by acts which he believed 
would conduce to the great end that he had in view. * ' I feel 
that measures otherwise unconstitutional might become law- 
ful by becoming indispensable to the preservation of the 
nation. Right or wrong, I assumed this ground, and now 
avow it." Acting upon this theory, while he had abstained 
from striking at slavery as an evil in itself and in its results, 
yet when, by deliberate and painful consideration, he became 
convinced that the preservation of the Union demanded free- 
dom for the slave, he determined upon emancipation so far 
as he could effect it consistently with his constitutional obliga- 
tion and his military prerogative. We honor his memory 
because of the courage and the foresight which led him to this 
great and beneficent act, but we in no wise detract from his 
fame as the liberator of the slave when calling attention to 
the fact that uniformly he justified the act by its military 
necessity, and never because of its righteousness as the aboli- 
tion of a great wrong. 

It is interesting to note the steps by which the President 
reached his determination to proclaim emancipation. He 
moved most cautiously and would not allow any of his sub- 



454 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

ordinates to force his hand, or permit them a latitude he 
would not permit himself; hence, when with impetuous and 
ill-judged zeal General Fremont, who, in 1856, was the first 
Republican nominee for the presidency, issued a Proclamation 
of Freedom, Mr. Lincoln courteously but positively revoked it 
■ — an act which brought upon him the condemnation of many 
of his warmest friends, to one of whom. Senator Browning, 
he wrote a confidential letter, dated Washington, September 
22, 1861, from which I quote : 

"General Fremont's proclamation as to confiscation of property and 
the liberation of slaves is purely political and not -within the range 
of military law or necessity. If a commanding general finds a neces- 
sity to seize the farm of a private owner for a pasture, an encampment, 
or a fortification, he has the right to do so, and to so hold it as long 
as the necessity lasts; and this is within military law, because within 
military necessity. But to say the farm shall no longer belong to the 
owner, or his heirs forever, and this as well when the farm is not 
needed for military purposes as when it is, is purely political, without 
the savor of military law about it. And the same is true of slaves. 
If the general needs them, he can seize them and use them; but when 
the need is past, it is not for him to fix their permanent future con- 
dition. That must be settled according to laws made by law-makers, 
and not by military proclamations. The proclamation in the point in 
question is simply 'dictatorship.' It assumes that the general may 
do anything he pleases — confiscate the lands and free the slaves of 
loyal people, as well as of disloyal ones. And going the whole figure, 
I have no doubt, would be more popular with some thoughtless people 
than that which has been done! But I cannot assume this reckless 
position, nor allow others to assume it on my responsibility. . . . 
I do not say Congress might not with propriety pass a law on the 
point, just such as General Fremont proclaimed. I do not say I might 
not, as a member of Congress, vote for it. What I object to is, that I, 
as President, shall expressly or impliedly seize and exercise the 
permanent legislative functions of the Government." * 

Again, when, later. General Hunter — unmindful of Fre- 
mont's experience, and confronted by peculiarly aggravating 
conditions in his Department of the South — issued a Procla- 
mation of Emancipation, the President countermanded the 

* These passages, were read by Major Lambert from the original auto- 
graph letter. 



THE PHILADELPHIA COMMEMORATION 455 

General's act, but in the order of revocation there was a 
distinct advance in the views expressed on the subject of 
emancipation as a military measure. Now, instead of doubt- 
ing his own right as President, he declared : 

"Whether it be competent for me, as commander-in-chief of the army 
and navy, to declare the shwes of any State or States free, and 
whether, at any time, in any case, it shall have become a necessity 
indispensable to the maintenance of the government to exercise such 
supposed power, are questions which, under my responsibility, I re- 
serve to myself, and which I cannot feel justified in leaving to the 
decision of commanders in the field." 

The revocation of these attempts at emancipation evoked 
many indignant protests against the President's action, but 
they were ineffective to change it; but four months later, 
having decided that the time had come when the nation's life 
demanded the emancipation of the slaves of rebel owners, on 
the twenty-second of September, 1862, he announced his pur- 
pose to declare freedom to the slaves held by the people in 
rebellion, and on the first of January, 1863, by virtue of his 
power as Commander-in-chief of the Army and Navy of the 
United States, as a fit and necessary war measure for the 
suppression of rebellion, he proclaimed emancipation to slaves 
within designated territory, invoking "upon this act, sincerely 
believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution 
upon military necessity, . . . the considerate judgment 
of mankind and the gracious favor of Almighty God." 

Although the President had decided that emancipation was 
only justified as a war measure, he declared emphatically that 
he would not retract or modify the Proclamation or return 
to slavery any person who had been freed by its terms or 
by any of the Acts of Congress, and in his last Annual Mes- 
sage he repeated that declaration and said, "If the people 
should, by whatever mode or means, make it an executive 
duty to reenslave such persons, another, and not I, must be 
their instrument to perform it." 

Emancipation, which, in its inception, was necessarily lim- 
ited and largely tentative, became by force of his action and 
by reason of his advocacy universal and permanent; for it 



456 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

was through his inspiration and because of his persistence that 
by legal procedure the war measure became a constitutional 
enactment, and to the end of time Abraham Lincoln will be 
known as the Liberator of the Slave. 

The possession of imperial power, the accomplishment of 
complete victory — saving the Union and securing its by- 
product, Emancipation — the plaudits of exulting thousands, 
did not change the man, or tempt him to forego his allegiance 
to the Constitution, or to waver in his devotion to "the senti- 
ments embodied in the Declaration of Independence." No 
aspiration for perpetuity of power separated him from the 
plain people upon whom he relied, from whose ranks he had 
come, to whom he expected to return ; for it is glory that he 
had not only completed a great work, and guaranteed its 
beneficent and far-reaching consequences, "but," to quote the 
language of Carl Schurz, "that during the stormiest and most 
perilous crisis in our history, he so conducted the Government 
and so wielded his almost dictatorial power as to leave essen- 
tially intact our free institutions in all things that concern the 
rights and liberties of the citizen." 

From the highest reach that Lincoln had attained before 
his accession to the Presidency, to the zenith of his career, the 
space seems incalculable. The study of his earlier life shows, 
indeed, that he possessed clearness of thought, remarkable gift 
of expression, native sagacity, honesty of purpose, and courage 
of conviction ; that he was devoted to the rights of man, and 
that he loved his country, but that he possessed elements of 
greatness in such degree as the War revealed could not have 
been surmised from aught he had said or done. And that he 
should manifest so soon and so signally his ability to rule a 
great nation in the most dangerous period of its existence ; 
that he should overtower his associates and prove that, more 
than they, he was fitted to save the government ; that he could 
wield a power far greater than that of any of his predecessors 
and surpassing that exercised by any contemporary ruler, 
king or emperor, could not have been foreseen by any lacking 
divine inspiration. Not by graded steps, but by giant stride, 
Lincoln reached the height of power, achievement, and fame. 



THE PHILADELPHIA COMMEMORATION 457 

True, the progress of the AVar revealed growth in character, 
in thought, and in force, and he stood much higher at its close 
than at its beginning; but at its opening it early became ap- 
parent that Providence had so shaped the country's destiny 
that the man who had been chosen mainly because of his avail- 
ability as a candidate was far and aw^ay the one man for the 
office and the work. 

In the metropolis of the State wherein most of Lincoln's 
life was lived, on the shore of the great lake over which he 
had so often looked, at the entrance to the beautiful park that 
bears his name, stands his figure in bronze, in the attitude 
of speaking, as he so often stood in life. His face is rugged 
and kindly ; no toga drapes his gaunt form or hides his every- 
day garb; no scroll in his hand and no conventional column 
by his side detract from his homely simplicity; no allegoric 
devices mar the harmonious realism. Upon the flanks of the 
granite exedra that stretches around the pedestal, metal globes 
bear the words of his immortal utterances. This triumph of 
Saint-Gaudens's art marvellously portrays the ideal, that is no 
less the real, Abraham Lincoln — Preserver of the Union — 
Saviour of the Republic, 



THE CORNELL UNIVERSITY 
COMMEMORATION 



THE COENELL UNIVERSITY 
COMMEMORATION 

THE regular exercises of Cornell University were sus- 
pended for the purpose of the Lincoln celebration, at 
which the Hon. Frank S. Black, former Governor of the State 
of New York, gave the commemorative address. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN: MASTER OF TIME 

HON. FRANK S. BLACK 

THERE are subjects upon which nothing new can be said, 
but which still arouse the fervor awakened at their first 
enunciation. If the song was true when it started on its 
journey, it will be sung as long as human hearts vibrate and 
tongues retain the gift of speech. It will be lisped by those 
who are tottering on toward the end, and echoed by those 
whose hearts are filled with the promise and the glow of youth. 
If the product was genuine when it passed from the Creator's 
hand, it will neither be dimmed by age nor cheapened by 
familiarity; for honor is not decreased by contact, and truth 
is never out of tune. If none of the old stories are ever to be 
re-told, many a noble inspiration must be lost, and many a 
tender chord must remain untouched. 

This is the age, I know, when the search is at its height for 
the new and marvellous, and in this eagerness the primeval 
forests are swept away, the bowels of the earth are punctured, 
and even on the remotest sea the observant eye detects the 
flutter of a sail. The watchword is energy, the goal is success, 
but in the fever of modern enterprise a moment's rest can do 
no harm. We must not only acquire, we must retain. We 
must not only learn, we must remember. The newest is not 

461 



462 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

always the best. The date or lustre of the coin does not deter- 
mine its metal. The substance may be plain and unobtrusive, 
and still be gold. Whoever chooses without a proper test may 
die both a pauper and a fool. The paintings of recent times 
have evoked the praise of critics, and yet thousands still pay 
their homage to an older genius. Modern literature is ablaze 
with beauty and with power, and yet millions are still going 
to one old and thumb-worn text for their final consolation. 

Kemembering the force of these examples, it will be profit- 
able sometimes to step one side for the serious contemplation 
of rugged, lasting qualities in whatever age or garb they have 
appeared. The hero of an hour will pass as quickly as he 
came. The flashlight will dazzle and blind, but when the eyes 
are rubbed the impression has passed away ; but the landscape 
that comes slowly into view with the rising sun, growing more 
resplendent and distinct with his ascending powder, and fading 
gently from the vision at the approach of night, will remain 
in the mind forever, to illuminate, to strengthen, and to cheer. 
And men are like impressions. There are more examples of 
the flashlight kind than there are fireflies on a summer's night, 
but there is no nobler representative of the enduring and 
immortal than he in whose name this event is celebrated. 
Whoever imparts a new view of his character must tell it to 
the newborn, to whom all things are new, for to the intelligent 
and mature his name and virtues have been long familiar. 
His was the power that commanded admiration, and the 
humanity that invited love ; mild but inflexible, just but merci- 
ful, great but simple, he possessed a head that commanded men 
and a heart that attracted babes. His conscience was strong 
enough to bear continual use. It was not alone for public 
occasions nor great emergencies. It was never a capital, but 
always a chart. It was never his servant, to be dismissed at 
will, but his companion to be always at his side. It was with 
him, but never behind him, for he knew that a pursuing 
conscience is an accuser, and not a guide, and brings remorse 
instead of comfort. 

His greatness did not depend upon his title, for greatness 
was his when the title was bestowed. He leaned upon no 



CORNELL UNIVERSITY COMMEMORATION 463 

fiction of nobility, and kissed no hand to obtain his rank, but 
the stamp of nobility and power which he wore was conferred 
upon him in that log hut in Kentucky, that day in 1809, when 
he and Nancy Hanks were first seen together, and it was 
conferred by a power which, unlike earthly potentates, never 
confers a title without a character that will adorn it. When 
we understand the tremendous advantages of a humble birth, 
when we realize that the privations of youth are the pillars of 
strength to maturer years, then we shall cease to wonder that 
out of such obscure surroundings as watched the coming of 
Abraham Lincoln should spring the colossal and supreme 
figure of modern history. 

Groves are better than temples, fields are better than 
gorgeous carpetings, rail fences are better than lines of kneel- 
ing slaves, and the winds are better than music if you are 
raising heroes and founding governments. 

Those who understand these things and have felt the heart 
of nature beat will not wonder that this man could stand the 
shock and fury of war, and yet maintain that calm serenity 
which enabled him to hear above the roar of the storm that 
enveloped him, the low, smothered cry that demanded the 
freedom of a race. 

If you look for attributes that dazzle and bewilder, you must 
seek them elsewhere than in the character of Abraham Lincoln. 
It was not by show or glitter or by sound that the great 
moments of history were marked, and the great deeds of man- 
kind were wrought. The color counts for nothing; it is the 
fibre alone that lasts. The precept will be forgotten unless 
the deed is remembered. The wildest strains of martial music 
will pass away on the wind, while the grim and deadly courage 
of the soldier, moving and acting without a word, will mark 
the spot where pilgrims of every race will linger and worship 
forever. 

No character in the world more clearly saw the worth of 
substance and the mockery of show, and no career ever set in 
such everlasting light the doctrine that although vanity and 
pretence may flourish for a day, there can be no lasting 
triumph not founded on the truth. 



464. ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

The life of Lincoln moved upon that high, consistent plane 
which the surroundings of his youth inspired. Poverty is a 
hard but oftentimes a loving nurse. If fortune denies the 
luxuries of wealth, she makes generous compensation in that 
greater love which they alone can ever know who have faced 
privations together. The child may shiver in the fury of the 
blast which no maternal tenderness can shield him from, but 
he may feel a helpless tear drop upon his cheek which will 
keep him warm till the snows of time have covered his hair. It 
is not wealth that counts in the making of the world, but 
character. And character is best formed amid those sur- 
roundings where every waking hour is filled with struggle, 
where no flag of truce is ever sent, and only darkness stays 
the conflict. Give me the hut that is small enough, the 
poverty that is deep enough, the love that is great enough, and 
over all the fear of God, and I will raise from them the best 
there is in human character. 

This lad, uncouth and poor, without aid or accidental cir- 
cumstance, rising as steadily as the sun, marked a path across 
the sky so luminous and clear that there is not one to mate 
it to be discovered in the heavens; and throughout its whole 
majestic length there is no spot or blemish in it. 

The love of justice and fair play, and that respect for order 
and the law which must underlie every nation that would long 
endure, were deeply embedded in his nature. These, I know, 
are qualities destitute of show and whose names are never set 
to music, but unless there is in the people 's heart a deep sense 
of their everlasting value, that people will neither command 
respect in times of their prosperity nor sympathy in the hour 
of their decay. These are the qualities that stand the test 
when hurricanes sweep by. These are the joints of oak that 
ride the storm and when the clouds have melted and the waves 
are still, move on serenely in their course. Times will come 
when nothing but the best can save us. Without warning and 
without cause, out of a clear and smiling sky may descend the 
bolt tliat will scatter the weaker qualities to the winds. We 
have seen that bolt descend. There is danger at such a time. 
The hurricane will pass like the rushing of the sea. Then is 



CORNELL UNIVERSITY COMMEMORATION 465 

the time to determine whether governments can stand amid 
such perilous surroundings. The American character has been 
often proved superior to any test. No danger can be so great 
and no calamity so sudden as to throw it off its guard. This 
great strength in times of trial, and this self-restraint in times 
of wild excitement, have been attained by years of training, 
precept, and experience. Justice has so often emerged tri- 
umphant from obstacles which seemed to chain her limbs and 
make the righteous path impossible, that there is now rooted 
in the American heart the faith, that, no matter how dark 
the night, there will somehow break through at the appointed 
hour a light which shall reveal to eager eyes the upright forms 
of Justice and the law, still moving hand in hand, still supreme 
over chaos and despair, the image and the substance of the 
world 's sublime reliance. 

I shall not tiy to present Lincoln as an orator, a lawyer, a 
statesman or a politician. His name and his performances in 
the lines which he pursued have been cut into the rock of 
American history with the deepest chisel yet made use of on 
this continent. But it is not by the grandeur of his powers 
that he has most appealed to me, but rather by those softer, 
homelier traits that bring him down to a closer and more 
affectionate view. The mountain that crowds its summit to 
the clouds is never so magnificent to the observer on the plain 
below as when, by some clear and kindly light, its smaller 
outlines are revealed. And Lincoln was never more imposing 
than when the milder attributes of his nature were exposed. 
He was genuine ; he was affectionate ; and after all is said, 
and the end is reached, what is there without these two ? You 
may measure the heights and sound the depths ; you may gain 
the great rewards of power and renown ; you may quiver under 
the electric current of applause — the time will come when 
these will fall from you like the rags that cover your body. 
The robes of power and the husks of pretence will alike be 
stripped away, and you must stand at the end as you stood at 
the beginning, revealed. Under such a test, Abraham Lincoln 
might stand erect, for no man loved the humbler, nobler traits 
more earnestly than he. Whatever he pretended to be, he was ; 
30 



466 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

genuine and sincere, he did not need embellishment. There is 
nothing in the world which needs so little decoration, or which 
can so well afford to spurn it altogether, as the absolutely 
genuine. Imitations are likely to be exposed unless carefully 
ornamented. Too much embellishment generally covers a 
blemish in the construction. It therefore happens that the 
first rate invariably rejects adornment and the second rate in- 
variably puts it on. The difference between the two can be 
discovered at short range, and safety from exposure lies only 
in imperfect examination. If the vision is clear and the 
inspection careful, there is no chance for the sham ever to be 
taken for the genuine ; and that is why it happens that among 
all the forms of activity in this very active age, no struggle is 
more sharp than that of the first rate to be found out and of 
the second not to be. It is easier to conceal what a thing is, 
than to prove it to be what it is not. One requires only con- 
cealment, the other demonstration. Sooner or later the truth 
will appear. Some time the decorations will fall off, and then 
the blemish will appear greater because of the surprise at find- 
ing it. None have less to fear from such a test than Abraham 
Lincoln, and his strength in that regard arose, it seems to me, 
from the preservation through all his life of that fondness 
for his early home, of the tender recollections of his family 
and their struggles, which kept his sympathy always warm and 
young. He was never so great but that the ties of his youth 
still bound him. He was never so far away but that he could 
still hear the note of the evening bird in the groves of his 
nativity. 

They say the tides of the ocean ebb and flow by a force 
which, though remote, always retains its power. And so with 
this man, whether he rose or fell; whether he stood in that 
giant-like repose that distinguished him among his fellow men, 
or exercised those unequalled powers, which, to my mind, made 
him the foremost figure of the world, yet he always felt the 
tender and invisible chord that chained him to his native rock. 
In whatever field he stood, he felt the benign and sobering 
influences of his early recollections. They were the rock to 
which he clung in storms, the anchor which kept his head to 



CORNELL UNIVERSITY COMMEMORATION 467, 

the wind, the balm which sustained him in defeat, and en- 
nobled him in the hour of triumph, 

I shall not say he had his faults, for is there any hope that 
man will pass through this vale of tears without them? Is 
there any danger that his fellow men wall fail to detect and 
proclaim them? He was not small in anything. He was 
carved in deep lines, like all heroic figures, for dangerous alti- 
tudes and great purposes. And as we move away from him, 
and years and events pass between us, his form will still be 
visible and distinct, for such characters built upon courage 
and faith, and that affection which is the seed of both, are 
not the playthings, but the masters of time. 

How long the names of men will last, no human foresight 
can discover, but I believe that even against the havoc and 
confusion in which so many names go down, the fame of Lin- 
coln will stand as immovable and as long as the pyramids 
against the rustle of the Egyptian winds. 



THE PITTSBUEG COMMEMORATION 



THE PITTSBUEG COMMEMORATION 

SCHOOL celebrations marked the day at Pittsburg, Penn- 
sylvania, as elsewhere in the United States, a hundred 
and twenty-five thousand school children taking part in 
this memorial tribute to Lincoln. In the evening there were 
special celebrations held in the Western Pennsylvania School 
for the Blind, and the Pittsburg Home for Deaf Mutes. 

A convocation celebration by the various departments of the 
University of Pittsburg was held in Carnegie Music Hall in 
the afternoon, while the women of Pittsburg's church organiza- 
tions gathered together in the afternoon to commemorate the 
day. Here Lincoln souvenirs were given to everyone in at- 
tendance. 

The Pittsburg Association of Credit Men held a banquet in 
the evening, but the important event of the day was the cele- 
bration by the Chamber of Commerce, which took the form 
of a banquet. The newly elected Vice-President-to-be, Hon. 
James S. Sherman, was the guest of honor, and the orator of 
the occasion. The audience was in a rollicking frame of 
mind, and subjected the Vice-President-elect to much affec- 
tionate raillery, singing "Sunny Jim," up and down the hall, 
and hailing the procession of the guests of honor with the 
softly whistled score of "Here Comes the Bride." The audi- 
ence was an enthusiastic one, and Mr. Sherman's speech, "Lin- 
coln: The Greatest American," was received with feeling and 
applause. 

The banquet room was decorated with the Stars and Stripes, 
and the black and gold colors of the city. The banquet was 
preceded by a reception at seven o'clock, where more than a 
thousand people came to shake hands with the guests of the 
day. Besides Vice-President-to-be Sherman, Congressman 
James Eli Watson, of Indiana, and the Hon. James Scarlet 
were on the programme. The Chairman in charge of the ar- 

471 



472 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

rangements for the reception and banquet was the Hon. John 
B. Barbour, Jr., while President Lee S. Smith, of the Cham- 
ber of Commerce, presided at the banquet, Judge J. J. Miller 
acting as toastmaster. 



LINCOLN: THE GREATEST AMERICAN 

HON. JAMES SCHOOLCRAFT SHERMAN 

WHAT a personality was Lincoln 's — What a task he per- 
formed — What results he achieved ! The life, the 
work, the end, are exhaustingly fascinating in their pathos. 
His heredity and environment offered no hope for his career. 
It has been said he was not brought up ; he came up. Through 
hardest struggle, through dismal lack, through stark necessity, 
he came; but up, up, he came, and stands distinctively, the 
American nobleman. 

No need to repeat his biography. History tells that he rose 
unaided from nothing to the executive head of this great 
nation, and his life has been the favorite illustration of authors 
and orators to emphasize the possibilities of American citizen- 
ship. 

It has been said that Napoleon, Washington, and Lincoln 
were children of destiny. True, mayhap, of Napoleon, but 
not of Washington and Lincoln. Napoleon did little which, 
in remembrance, endears him to his people. He was a warrior, 
not a philosopher. Washington was, to a degree, both. He 
assumed command of the armies, sustained and encouraged 
by a united people smarting under the yoke of a monarchy, 
thirsting for independence and individual liberty. Washing- 
ton was aware of his strength in his own country, and the 
possibilities and probable results of a strong ^resistance. He 
had studied military methods; he knew frontier warfare. 
He had the advantage of birth, of education, of early asso- 
ciation with cultivated people. More, he was schooled by con- 
tact with the brightest and best men of the age, and by severe 
and trying campaigns. He had learned the lesson of experi- 



THE PITTSBURG COMMEMORATION 473 

ence, had seen the grand future possible for this country with 
her affairs properly directed. After seven years of a success- 
ful warfare, he came to the presidency, equipped by study 
and experience, with wisdom and enlightenment, and it is 
small wonder that he stands "first in war, first in peace, and 
first in the hearts of his countrymen." 

When Lincoln was discovered and nominated — not as the 
unquestioned choice of all the people, but rather of the minor- 
ity of a party, a minority made into a majority, apparently, 
by means of political tactics — the situation was far different. 
The nation was rent asunder, opinion was divided, and a 
grave constitutional question was involved. In the South the 
dark cloud of secession had already appeared, while in the 
North there were mutterings of sympathy. Men were being 
persecuted for their beliefs; the right of freedom of thought 
and expression was questioned, and a whirlpool of discord and 
dissension was gathering. It threatened to engulf the nation 
in its mighty rush. 

At such a moment Lincoln was brought forward. How 
different from Napoleon, whose victories on the field of battle, 
whose brilliant achievements wherever the force of arms was 
tried, had made him for the nonce the idol of his impetuous 
people! How unlike the introduction of Washington, when 
a united, harmonious people, desperate from long suffering, 
were ready to sacrifice, to do and die, that their descendants 
might enjoy the privileges of freedom unfettered by a govern- 
ment not in sympathy with their aims, their purposes, or their 
needs ! 

Lincoln had none of the advantages or encouragements of 
many of his predecessors. He was untried, almost unknown. 
The crisis was approaching; he must meet it or fall. That is 
the situation pictured by the after-lights ; and surely by intu- 
ition or inspiration he so viewed it. Not the liberty of the 
defenders of the Stars and Stripes which floated victoriously 
over Bunker Hill, and Saratoga, and Bennington, and Oris- 
kany, was at stake, but the liberty of a race foreign to the 
country — a race brought here for bondage or reared in slavery. 
Was it worth fighting for? Many in the North said "No!" 



474 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Was it a question whicli could be constitutionally acted upon ? 
The entire South said "No!" and then Abraham Lincoln, 
with dignity, with firmness, and with a spirit which could have 
been inspired only of God, grasped the helm of the Ship of 
State and pointed its course directly into the teeth of the 
storm. His Proclamation of Emancipation unforged the fet- 
ters of the slaves, united the North, sent a thrill of joy and 
patriotism in reverberation over the land — until the hundreds 
of thousands of boys in blue swore by their flag and by their 
country that slavery should cease, and that their nation should 
be reunited though it were cemented by blood. 

A child of destiny? No! An American boy, a man of 
America. Born, bred, and reared in an atmosphere of liberty, 
of justice, and of truth, made possible only by Washington 
and his compatriots ; broadened, ripened, and educated under 
the sun of freedom; endowed with physical capabilities 
brought to their greatest perfection by years of toil and indus- 
try and self-denial; possessing mental strength developed by 
the same rigorous discipline — he was fitted to lead, and the 
situation brought him forward. 

His appearance was at the most critical time in the nation 's 
history. He met his responsibilities superbly. Gentle, mild, 
and forbearing, his private and official careers are filled with 
pictures of prose and poetry which throw about him a charm 
most delicate and delightful. His homely, quaint humor 
brightens with age, and will never be disassociated from his 
name, or copied by another. 

That Lincoln was perhaps the greatest American will not 
be denied, but his individuality was greater than his personal- 
ity. It was not merely because he was President during the 
Civil War; not because he solved its stupendous problems 
with a mildness and gentleness and without the least display 
of physical power or authority; not because he marshalled 
armies in the panoply of war or sent navies to battle against 
almost impregnable strongholds. It was not because of any 
of these things that his memory is more and more revered, 
and his name more and more cherished, as we of this nation 
annually meet to pay homage to him, to impress upon our 



THE PITTSBURG COMMEMORATION 475 

children that America produced, developed, and honored 
such a man. It was because he had within him more than 
statesmanship, more than fervid patriotism, more than a calm, 
dispassionate element of judgment. It was not because he 
sought preferment; not that he considered the effect upon 
personality, or what the future might say of him. He saw 
no shadow on future popularity, so anxiously looked for and 
so carefully avoided by the politician. He is not to be meas- 
ured by the craft or the selfish sagacity of a statesman. It 
was because he had within him that stern, unyielding sense of 
duty. He saw his path before him clearly outlined, and he 
followed it regardless of obstacles — patient, untiring, possessed 
of no thought of what the morrow might have in store for 
him personally — confident in his rugged honesty and homely 
but true philosophy, that though perhaps misunderstood and 
wrongly criticised, sooner or later his mission would be accom- 
plished and his country once more stand forth reunited and 
rejuvenated, the greatest nation of all time, glorifying in her 
strength, her broadness, her humanity, and her achievements. 

Gentle beyond compare, patient beyond belief, his country 
and his duty were his creed, and for them he labored un- 
ceasingly and suffered patiently. *'It is not a question of 
Lincoln, of Democrat or Republican, but a question of our 
country," he once said when reproached for a contemplated 
action. It was that sentiment, *'our country," which guided 
him. For that country he gave himself without reserve, his 
rare talents, his immeasurable love, his remarkable sagacity — 
his life. All were freely laid upon the altar of home and 
country. 

Careful and close inspection of his life reveals no single 
act which would bring him forth as a hero, or a man to be 
revered in after years. No one of his acts beckons posterity 
to cherish his memory or to applaud his name. Still, there 
he stands, gentle, yet firm ; calm, yet unyielding ; facing the 
storm of revolution; meeting defeat on bloody battlefields; 
earning victories at the expense of thousands of lives and mil- 
lions of treasure; steadfastly facing the storm, unmoved by 
protest, denunciation, or praise, unwaveringly and persistently 



476 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

pushing forward to that result which should bring peace with 
honor, and cement this nation in ties of brotherhood so strong, 
so enduring, that it would seem beyond the bounds of possi- 
bility that they should again be severed. 

Great presidents have come and gone; great generals have 
achieved victories that have moved the world to poems of 
praise and thanksgiving; great statesmen have by diplomacy 
gathered for us fruits of politics, and laurels of world-respect, 
which have given us momentary pride and moved us well nigh 
to national egotism ; but above and beyond all in the procession 
of the great men of our past history, stands Lincoln. Lin- 
coln — not seeking greatness, yet the greatest of all! Lincoln 
— tried by fire, tempted by calls of what seemed humanity! 
Lincoln — the gentle, yet holding true the course of the Ship 
of State amid the most fearful carnage internecine strife had 
ever inflicted, his heart glowing with sympathy and sorrow, 
and his gaze longing for the sight of the olive branch of peace, 
hid by the tempestuous clouds of war 1 Lincoln — bearing the 
crucifix of rebellion, never for a moment hesitating or halting, 
and finally, when the end was reached and the labor of recon- 
struction begun, giving up his life for the cause which brought 
him forth! Well might have been his last words, "It is not 
a question of Lincoln, but of our country." 

It is because of all of this that we of this country speak 
of Lincoln to-night. It will be because of this, as the years 
go by, and as the transcendent qualities and benign nature 
of the man are studied and appreciated by future generations, 
that his memory will be recalled more eloquently and more 
vividly by an appreciative country. 

As time passes, as we draw further away from the days on 
earth of the truest and best men, their figures stand out 
against the background of the history of ages, brightened and 
illuminated — yes, magnified, magnified to human eyes. In 
Statuary Hall in the Capitol at Washington is a life-size 
statue of Washington. The thousands who halt before it, 
almost in reverence, each year, are impressed with the thought 
— "Was he no larger than that?" His deeds and his memory 



THE PITTSBURG COMMEMORATION 477 

have so wrought themselves upon our imagination, that we 
look to see, in the representation of his form, a giant in 
stature. With Lincoln fresher in our minds, with those among 
us who knew him in his life, his statue seems but that of a 
pigmy in comparison with the results he achieved. 

Future generations will pause before the image of the 
martyr patriot to wonder if the figures were not reduced by 
the sculptor to accommodate some niche among the glorious 
men in our national history. 

The traveller fortunate enough to traverse America's west- 
em coast, north of the Golden Gate, sees upon the one side 
the blue, never-resting bosom of the Pacific, disappearing only 
under the steady music of its rolling waves breaking on the 
shore; on the other side the rugged peaks of the Sierra 
Nevadas. And in the northward journey are seen, now and 
again, standing out against the sky, like nature's everlasting 
sentinels, those magnificent snow-capped peaks, Shasta, and 
Adams, and Jefferson, and Hood, The Sisters, and last — 
grandest and greatest of all — Mount Rainier, eternally snow- 
capped, towering fifteen thousand feet into the sky. I remem- 
ber to have stood at Tacoma and gazed with awe upon that 
pearly wonder — fifty miles away and yet so grand and great 
that its base seemed at my very feet. I remember to have 
seen it when the valley between it and me was filled with 
the storm cloud, and yet above the cloud this matchless peak 
towered a mile into the sky. I remember that when I left 
Tacoma it was at night, and that after riding all night upon 
the cars the first object that met my gaze in the morning was 
this same beautiful mountain peak, seeming grander, higher, 
more impressive than ever. 

So it seems to me it is with Lincoln. Grand and strong and 
immutable in his greatness as he appeared in life, towering 
as he did above the storm cloud of war that surrounded him ; 
yet viewed as we view him to-day through more than four 
decades of history, he seems even greater, more nearly divinely 
sent than before. 

This is the test of true greatness. Lincoln sustains that 



478 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

test. No flaws can be discovered in his character, inspect it 
as you will. His is a fame which will shine with undying 
lustre ; his a name that will never be forgotten. 

The sacredness of the Constitution, the unity of the States, 
the true freedom of all the people — for which he labored 
and prayed, for which his life went out just as the dawn of 
promise was breaking — are ours, still ours; ours to preserve 
and defend as he pointed the way ; and we will preserve and 
defend them. Please God we may never again lose a chosen 
leader by the hand of one whose disordered brain directs 
it to fire the fatal shot. Please God that he whom the people 
choose to direct the nation 's destinies during the coming years 
may, in the strength and vigor of perfect health, discharge 
those duties to the end. And as Lincoln inspired confidence 
and faith — so, calm, placid, serene — may he awaken a firm 
conviction that our future is secure. His hand upon the 
wheel, his eye upon the chart, may we be inspired to say : 

"Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State! 
Sail on, O Union, strong and great; 
Humanity with all its fears, 
With all the hopes of future years, 
Is hanging breathless on thy fate! 
We know what Master laid thy keel, 
What Workman wrought thy ribs of steel, 
Who made each mast, each sail, each rope, 
What anvils rang, what hammers beat, 
With what a forge and what a heat 
Were made the anchors of thy hope ! 
Fear not the sudden sound and shock, 
*Tis of the wave and not the rock, 
*Ti3 but the flapping of the sail, 
And not a rent made by the gale. 
In spite of rock and tempest roar, 
In spite of false lights on the shore. 
Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea! 
Our hearts, our hopes are all with thee, 
Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears, 
Our faith, triumphant o'er our fears, 
Are all with thee — are all with thee!" 



THE JANESVILLE COMMEMORATION 



THE JANESVILLE COMMEMORATION 

HON. GEORGE R. PECK, of Chicago, former President of 
the American Bar Association, has rendered many beau- 
tiful tributes to Lincoln ; on the occasion of the Centenary he 
spoke at his old home at Janesville, Wisconsin. 



THE APOSTLE OF OPPORTUNITY 

HON. GEORGE B. PECK 

IT is very fitting and appropriate that this association of 
lawyers should render homage to one of their calling, who, 
after winning high professional distinction, took to himself 
a glory and a fame that cannot die. You do well to remember 
that Abraham Lincoln was a lawyer. If you will recall his 
last great years — the years by which the world knows him — 
you will feel a certain pride in belonging to that profession 
which he chose in youth and whose principles and traditions 
were his guide and monitors to the end. In all that majestic 
on-marching career we may see — nay, we cannot fail to see — 
that he followed with almost religious devotion the approving 
voice and sanction of the law. Mark the solemn language 
which was the real keynote of the First Inaugural : "I hold, ' ' 
he said, "that in contemplation of universal law and of the 
Constitution, the LTnion of these States is perpetual." In that 
sentence it w^as the lawyer who spoke, giving to the states- 
men who surrounded him, the fundamental idea upon which 
it was his purpose to stand. It was a brave pronouncement. 
Certainly it was also political wisdom and political truth, but 
above these the clear vision of Abraham Lincoln saw the 
organic law of a nation consecrated and enthroned. I bid you, 

481 



482 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

gentlemen of the bar, take mindful heed of that great ideal 
which lifted Abraham Lincoln to such lofty heights. 

This much I have thought to say of him, because he be- 
longed to our guild. He knew, as we do, the rigor of a law- 
suit; he had felt the joy of victory and the smart of defeat; 
and, I do not doubt, the memory of the days when he travelled 
the circuit, and of forensic contests in which he had taken 
part, nerved and strengthened him in the weary years when 
nerve and strength were sorely needed. But Abraham Lincoln 
was not a mere lawyer, and history has given him a fame so 
universal that the world hardly remembers he belonged to 
our profession. But, if we cannot claim him simply because 
we are lawyers, we may yet rejoice that, as citizens of the 
Kepublic, we participate with all that bear the American name 
in his unfading renown. 

In very truth he belongs alike to all who have shared the 
precious heritage which he left to his counti^-men. He belongs 
to them as the lighthouse does to the mariner who steers his 
bark by its steadfast ray. He belongs to all who cherish the 
ideas, the hope, and the faith that were in him. Whatever sad 
and heroic memories cluster around his great career, some- 
thing of their glory, some breath of their fragrance, rests upon 
every man who strives to make the United States of America 
such a nation as Abraham Lincoln strove to make it. 

When we think of the name that is in every heart and upon 
every lip, how like a dream seems the century that is past ! 
In a rude Kentucky cabin a hundred years ago this very day, 
the curtain was rising upon a drama which was destined to be 
of epic grandeur. Recalling the hour and the event, we al- 
most seem to hear the rhythmic beat of the years as they speed 
to their eternal goal. 

It is sometimes said, and said with truth, that the American 
character, considered as a type, has not yet been formed and 
moulded into shape. Undoubtedly it is still plastic and muta- 
ble; but we must remember that the processes of time are 
slow. The entire period since the western continent dawned 
upon Europe is but a brief span in comparison with the cen- 
turies which have been fusing Norman and Saxon and Dane 



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Facsimile of Maiinscripf I'rihulc from Dr. Hciiry \:m Dykr 




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THE JANESVILLE COMMEMORATION 483 

into the English race; and yet we have something to show 
when great names are counted, something to remember when 
great deeds are told. Abraham Lincoln outshines the Plan- 
tagenets, and ennobles common blood forevermore. 

The laws of descent are mysterious, if not altogether fathom- 
less. Science, indeed, tells us that men are, in their essential 
qualities, the result and product of all their ancestors. But 
how and why it is — who can tell? The lineage of Abraham 
Lincoln was so humble, his environment and that of his family 
so narrow and so steeped in poverty, it seems like a miracle 
that he should ever have burst such bonds. Nicolay and Hay, 
in their great work, after describing his wretched birthplace, 
say: "And there, in the midst of the most unpromising 
circumstances that ever witnessed the advent of a hero into 
the world, Abraham Lincoln was born on the twelfth day of 
February, 1809." In this event there was nothing to attract 
attention — absolutely no prophecy of the future latently slum- 
bering in the new born child. Least of all was there any hint 
of the solemn pageantry with which a great nation this day 
commemorates that lowly birth. Birthdays are rests and 
pauses in the symphony of time, and in observing the great 
and notable ones we set history to music. 

Abraham Lincoln's parents were Virginians, but the an- 
cestral strain flowed from Old England through New England, 
New Jersey, and Pennsylvania before it reached Virginia. 
The first of his race to settle in America was Samuel Lincoln, 
who came from Norwich, England, in 16S8, and cast his lot 
with the God-fearing settlers who had located in the forest 
solitudes of Hingham, Massachusetts. Later, his son Mor- 
decai pushed on to New Jersey, and thence to Pennsylvania. 
John, who was Mordecai's son, returned from Pennsylvania 
to New Jersey, but soon sought another home in Rockingham 
County, Virginia, and through him the blood of the Hingham 
Puritan flowed uninterruptedly to Abraham Lincoln. They 
were a family of frequent migrations, ever hungering for the 
wilderness and the frontier. If you follow their footsteps, 
you will be led from Massachusetts to New Jersey, Pennsyl- 
vania, Virginia, and Kentucky, and, after the birth of Abra- 



484 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

ham Lincoln, to Indiana and Illinois. Out of these 
wanderings, perhaps by reason of them, or, it may be, in 
spite of them, was evolved the highest type of man this 
nation has known. And that is the mystery of it all, from 
every point of view. Human wisdom fails utterly when it 
grapples such a question. If any answer shall ever come, 
it must be in that far-off ultimate region where the mind 
can get nearer than now to the fugitive wherefore, and the 
ever elusive why. "What gave so humble a plant such a 
noble fruitage is a problem we can not yet solve. But this 
we know, that it is our boon and privilege to behold, admire, 
and love. 

Carlyle, within certain limitations, was not far from right 
in adoring heroes, and he was more than right in seeing that 
heroes do not of necessity wear plumes and sabres. It is 
the meek and not the mighty who are promised the inher- 
itance of the earth. Francis of Assisi, out on the mountain 
side, calling the birds to come and perch upon his shoulders, 
and beckoning the poor peasantry to follow him in the path- 
way to the higher life, is a nobler figure than the great 
Medici, bent with the weight of his tinsel and his broidery. 
In the same way it may be truly said that Luther was a 
greater conqueror than Von Moltke, and Victor Hugo in 
exile a more potent force than the Third Napoleon in the 
Tuileries. Ideal characters cannot be made to order. They 
must stand for something more than accident, for something 
better than titles and dignities. 

You do well to celebrate this day, and you will be wise if, 
here and now, you pledge a new and increasing fealty to 
the memory of Abraham Lincoln and his noble life. The 
times in which we live are filled with high appeals and 
solemn warnings, and yet we are in danger of forgetting 
plain old truths. The age is restless. Everywhere there is 
discontent, partly right and partly wrong; but they greatly 
err who imagine that the white crest upon the wave is a 
true measure of the depths below. The dogmatist and the 
doctrinaire, whose lips have hardly been moistened by the 
dew of wisdom, think that they, above all others, have a 



THE JANESVILLE COMMEMORATION 485 

message to which the age must listen. And thus it happens 
that things are often made to seem more, and sometimes far 
less, than they really are. It is well, perhaps, that it should 
be so. Let us not complain, for it is a wise and wholesome 
liberty which declares that every creed and doctrine shall 
be heard, and every voice shall have its say. But when 
the crickets pipe and chirrup, it is pleasant to think that 
somewhere there is peace; and when summer heats are upon 
us, it is sweet to rest in the shadow of an illustrious name. 
"He was not of an age, but for all time," was the noble 
tribute of Ben Jonson to Shakespeare, and it is as widely 
true of him who was the gentlest, bravest, wisest leader that 
ever wore the name of American citizen. 

Abraham Lincoln was great — not fully knowing, but, I 
think, always believing in his own greatness. In him com- 
mon sense took on flesh and blood. Rooted in humble soil, 
his life grew and strengthened and unconsciously flowered 
into fame. If you compare him with other statesmen — with 
Pitt, or Fox, or Palmerston — you will see that he had learned 
the secret never revealed to them, the sublime art of leading 
while seeming to follow. He is sometimes called the founder 
of the Republican Party. He was not that, but he was more. 
When, in 1858, he made that memorable canvass of Illinois, 
his party was a great instrument, discordant and untuned. 
He touched its chords and straightway a nation leaped into 
life to follow its enchanting strains. Some, perhaps, are 
here to-day who knew him; all have felt in their veins the 
thrill of his inspiring words. In those early days no one 
fathomed him. To his neighbors he was a plain, homely 
man, but behind that rugged face and the ill-fitting clothes 
there dwelt the soul of a ruler. No herald announced his 
coming, no trumpet sounded when a new Agamemnon — not 
king of men, but leader of men — rose from the prairies. 
"Is not a man better than a town?" asks Emerson. Verily, 
Abraham Lincoln, proclaiming the unwelcome truth that had 
just begun to dawn, was more than a city with all its domes 
and turrets flashing against the sky. We often talk of men 
who have a mission. Think of him in all that great debate, 



486 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

sounding into unwilling ears the prophetic figure of the 
"house divided against itself." Again and again it rang 
out, like an alarum bell, calling upon men to bestir them- 
selves if they would avert the gathering wrath. 

And the storm came — but the house stood. It stood be- 
cause Abraham Lincoln lived to set it right and to make 
all who dwelt therein free, by the grace of God and his own 
immortal pen. 

It is something more than a sentiment which makes us 
love the memory of Abraham Lincoln, though sentiment 
alone is a sufficient reason. The years have lifted him into 
the region of legend and tradition. But there are still among 
us men whose memories go back to the days when he carried 
the nation's burdens. They remember how the world opened 
its eyes to marvel at his never-failing judgment, his tender 
sympathy, and the unconquerable spirit which disaster could 
not shake nor victory too much elate. He kept his even 
poise in good and in evil times. No President before or 
since ever selected such a Cabinet. He chose his rivals to 
be his advisers and easily towered above them all. And 
yet this man, so sagacious and sensible, had, as the greatest 
always have, a temperament highly wrought, poetical, mys- 
tical, almost superstitious. The unseen world haunted him 
like a vision. To him was given that "inward eye" of which 
iWordsworth sang, the deep perception of things which are 
precious because they are invisible. It seems strange to us 
that Abraham Lincoln believed in the dreams that came to 
him before great victories and defeats; but it is because we 
cannot fully comprehend a nature in which, if there had 
not been some vent, soul and body would have sunk together 
under the terrible strain that was upon him. In the midst 
of it all a merciful solace came to him in that sense of 
humor with which he was so largely endowed. Only fools 
are always serious. Abraham Lincoln's humor gives him a 
place in the first order of minds. Laughter and tears are 
next of kin. The same pen that wrote "Hamlet" gave to 
the world the rollicking fun of Falstaff, and thereby showed 
that his genius was "as broad and general as the casing air," 



THE JANESVILLE COMMEMORATION 487 

If Abraham Lincoln had been a pedant ; if he had been simply 
an able lawyer; nay, if he had been only a statesman, instead 
of a Man, you would never have heard of his stealing silently 
out of the "White House at night, out under the midnight 
sky, alone, to think of the old days by the Sangamon and to 
brood over the unknown future and the veil which hung 
between him and his destiny. 

The mythical and the romantic have already gathered their 
stories and wreathed them about his name. The age of 
chivalry has passed, and this unromantic century does not 
readily accept the traditional and the unreal; and yet King 
Arthur and the Cid are no more heroes in the fabulous tales 
of their knightly deeds than is Abraham Lincoln in the 
quaint and curious anecdotes of his life. He is the only 
great man in history whom we can make seem like ourselves, 
the plain, everyday people. Who knew as he did how to 
say the right word? Who, like him, could touch the popular 
heart when it was ready to break, and make it beat again 
with his own high resolves? We took our courage from him, 
and the shattered armies filled up when he sounded the 
summons to come. 

The great crisis of his life, as all the world knows, was 
the proclamation of freedom. It has been glorified in history, 
poetry and art. And yet, resplendent as it was, he gave to 
it none of the dramatic coloring which usually accompanies 
such events. It was, perhaps, an inspiration, but it was 
not such as suddenly came to Napoleon, when he called upon 
the Pyramids and past ages to be witnesses of his genius. 
If you will stop to consider, you will see how the very great- 
ness of it forbade any of the tawdry gilding of a theatrical 
performance. Others might be thinking of such things, but 
he had "that within w'hich passeth show." Simplicity is 
the truest sublimity. And thus it happened that the greatest 
act in American history — perhaps in all history — went forth 
only as an appeal to "the considerate judgment of mankind 
and the gracious favor of Almighty God." 

And then his prophecy came true. The house ceased to 
be divided. The armies of the Union, pressing forward with 



488 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

new hope, carried victory and freedom together and made 
them one. History has given Abraham Lincoln a unique 
place. He had power greater than any King or Emperor, 
and he used it as modestly as a village pastor might wield 
his influence over a rural congregation. It has sometimes 
been said that he did not have in the highest sense what is 
known as executive ability. I am glad that he did not. 
Very small men have had that. But he had what is better. 
He was granite for the right, but yielding as water when 
common sorrows touched his own sad heart. 

"The better angels of our nature," of which he spoke in 
that first sublime appeal to his countrymen, were living 
realities to him ; and many a time, when some soldier boy had 
made a slip from the rules of military duty and discipline, 
those "better angels" pleaded for him, and pleaded not in 
vain. How true it is that "spirits are not finely touched 
but to fine issues." Abraham Lincoln's nature was not that 
which is commonly, but mistakenly, supposed to dwell in the 
backwoodsman and the rustic. God sets his seal on the brow 
which is worthy to receive it. You cannot tell what subtle 
law it was that made a Warwickshire village flash Shakespeare 
upon the world's great canvas, nor why Burns came from 
an Ayrshire cottage to be the universal singer of humanity. 
Equally, it is beyond our ken to guess why Abraham Lincoln, 
plain and homespun, was called from an Illinois prairie to 
the first place in the world. 

He was above all things a man ; strong, resolute, modest, 
too great to be proud, too deeply introspective not to see his 
own limitations and his own possibilities. No ruler by divine 
right ever had more true dignity ; no laborer driving his team 
afield, more true humility. As Abraham Lincoln, he never 
forgot that he was President; as President, he never forgot 
that he was Abraham Lincoln. He was more than conqueror. 
The armies triumphed at last; but greater than Atlanta or 
Richmond or Appomattox was the conquest he made of the 
world's opinions and the world's heart. Four years had lifted 
him into the secure region where neither malice nor envy 
nor uncharitableness can ever come again. And what years 



THE JANESVILLE COMMEMORATION 489 

they were! Years of broken hopes, of pride crushed under 
chariot wheels, years of disappointment and years of agony. 
Armies had gone down in ruin, and generals had ridden to 
defeat; but still the nation waited, patiently trusting the 
leader who never spoke a doubting word. We lived on hope 
— **the medicine of the unhappy." But the currents came 
right at last. Victories began to crowd upon each other, 
giving assurance that fortune had repented and would make 
atonement for the past. 

Those of us who are old remember how the Fourth of July 
gained a new lustre at Gettysburg, and was given a deeper 
meaning when Vicksburg opened its gates and the river flowed 
unvexed to the sea. And then the months went on, crowded 
with thrilling scenes, as if a new Homer were chanting another 
story for the ages. Every day some shackle was broken ; 
every hour some slave stood up and thanked God that he was 
free. In that last triumphal year there was a Wilderness 
to be crossed, but there was a Grant to cross it. There was 
a sea kissing the beach by Savannah, but there was a Sherman 
eager to plant the flag on its shore. And so the end came 
in glory and with a joy that never would find words. And 
with the end came death and immortality — 

"When lilacs last in the dooryard bloomed, 

And the great star early drooped in the western sky in the night, 
I mourned, and yet shall mourn with ever returning Spring." 

Nature has griefs that claim kinship with humanity. The 
story is told that farmers in central Illinois insisted, with 
quaint but touching gravity, that the brown thrush did not 
sing for a year after he died. When he ceased to breathe, 
Edwin M. Stanton turned to the group of mourners standing 
by his bedside and said, "Now he belongs to the ages." 

It is true ; and the times in which we live, the events which 
we have witnessed, or that have come to us from those who 
saw and heard and felt, make us hostages to his memory, and 
pledge us to that universal truth whose voice pleads for every 
good cause. 

It is an inspiring thing to follow one whose leadership 



490 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

is always toward what is best in American citizenship. View- 
ing that greatest figure in all our history, we cannot fail to 
see that he was absolutely free from cant and affectation, 
doing bravely and openly the things he conceived to be his 
duty. He lived in plain view of his neighbors and friends, 
sharing their joys and sorrows, doing his duty after the 
fashion of a brave and honest man. Until the time when 
the nation called him to his great office, he might have been 
counted — and, I suppose, was counted, in some sense — a politi- 
cian, but I have never heard that he was ashamed of the fact, 
or had cause to be ashamed. Undoubtedly he recognized, and 
it is one proof of his greatness, that in every constitutional 
government, parties, notwithstanding their blemishes and im- 
perfections, are the forces upon which statesmen and patriots 
and the people themselves must rely. If you would make 
steam work, you must harness it into the mechanism of an 
engine. If you would make principles effective, you must 
organize them into moral batteries which will break down the 
forces that stand in their path. 

The large, well-rounded nature of Abraham Lincoln always 
reached out for high essentials, but never wasted time on 
small abstractions. Slavery in all its forms was hideous to 
him, and he opposed its extension with all the strength of 
his rugged nature, but, recognizing its constitutional sanctions, 
he never thought of disturbing it in the States where it was 
protected by law until, to save the Union and to crush the 
Rebellion, he sentenced it to death. 

Abraham Lincoln was the apostle of opportunity. Doing 
always the duty that lay nearest, he worked with the tools 
that were at hand. He knew — and we must learn — that ma- 
jorities and minorities may be right or wrong; but whatever 
is best will some day come if only patience stands on guard. 

How paltry seem the little contentions of little men ! More 
than any other of our statesmen, Abraham Lincoln stands 
for that largeness of view, that serene balance of mind, 
which is the true evidence of genius. And that is our highest 
lesson to-day and the lesson for the centuries to come. Above 



THE JANESVILLE COMMEMORATION 491 

all else, Abraham Lincoln leads us away from things which 
are petty and ignoble to the heights — always to the heights. 

Comrades of the Grand Army, more than any others in 
this great assemblage, you are the sure and concrete proof 
of American patriotism. You have worn the blue, you have 
carried the flag, and you have stood in rank when the air was 
filled with scream of shot and shell. But to-day the peace for 
which you fought rests upon you as a blessing and a benedic- 
tion. 

Let me salute you in soldier fashion and give you heart 
and hand in memory of the old days and the old cause. It 
must needs be that time and frost and the years that never 
stop have stiffened our joints and given us the stoop of age, 
but shall the currents of our hearts be slackened ? Comrades, 
we are old ; but there are infinite memories which invoke us 
to be true to the cause which was the love of our youth. 
When fife and drum were sounding it w-as easy to keep step 
to every call, and now, when our lives have almost reached 
the end, and our walk is slow and heavy, let us proudly re- 
member that it was Abraham Lincoln who summoned us to 
defend a government "of the people, by the people, for the 
people." 



AN EX-SLAVE'S TRIBUTE TO THE EMANCIPATOR* 

DR. BOOKER T. WASHINGTON 

WHEN I look back it seems to me that almost the first 
name I learned, aside from those of the people who 
lived on or near the Virginia plantation where I was born, 
was that of Abraham Lincoln, who, forty-six years ago last 
month, signed the Proclamation which set my people free. 

The circumstances under which I first heard the name of 
the great emancipator were these : When the war broke out 
I was a small boy on a plantation in Franklin County, in 
the southwestern corner of Virginia. We were living in a 
remote part of the country and, although the war was going 
on all around us, we saw little of it, except when we saw 
them brought back again — as we did sometimes — dead. 

My mother was the cook on our plantation and as I grew 
up and was able to make myself useful, my work was to 
attend my master's table at meal time. In the dining-room 
there was an arrangement by which a number of fans that 
hung to the rafters over the table could be moved slowly 
back and forth by pulling a string. It was my business to 
work these fans at meal time, and that, as I remember, was 
the first work I ever did. As a result, however, I was present 
at all the meals and heard all the conversation that went on 
there. Incidentally I heard a great deal about the causes and 
the progress of the War, and though I understood very little 
of what I heard, there was one name that stuck fast in my 
memory and that was the name of Abraham Lincoln. The 
reason that I remembered this name more than the others, was 
because it was the one name that I encountered at the "big 
house," which I heard repeated in different tones and with 
different significance in the cabins of the slaves. 

* Copyright, 1909, by The Chicago Tribune. 



THE JANESVILLE COMMEMORATION 493 

Many a night before the dawn of day I have been awakened 
to find the figure of my dear mother bending over me as I 
lay huddled up in a corner of the kitchen, praying that 
"Marse Lincoln" might succeed and that some day I might 
be free. Under these circumstances the name of Lincoln made 
a great impression upon me, and I never forgot the circum- 
stances under which I first heard it. 

Among the masses of the negro people on the plantations 
during the War, all their dreams and hopes of freedom were 
in some way or other coupled with the name of Lincoln. 
When the slaves sang those rude plantation hymns, in which 
thoughts of heaven and salvation were mingled with thoughts 
of freedom, I suspect they frequently confused the vision 
of the Saviour with that of the Emancipator, and so salvation 
and freedom came to mean sometimes pretty much the same 
thing. 

There is an old plantation hymn that runs somewhat as 
follows : 

"We '11 soon be free. 
We '11 soon be free, 
When de Lord will call us home. 
My brudder, how long, 
My brudder, how long, 
'Fore we done sufferin' here? 
It won't be long, 
It won't be long, 
Tore de Lord will call us home." 

When that song was first sung, the "freedom" of which 
it speaks was the freedom that comes after death, and the 
"home" to which it referred was Heaven. After the War 
broke out, however, the slaves began to sing these freedom 
songs with greater vehemence, and they gained a new and 
more definite meaning. To such an extent was this the case 
that in Georgetown, South Carolina, it is said that negroes were 
put in jail for singing the song which I have quoted. 

When Lincoln, in April, 1865, entered Kichmond imme- 
diately after it had been evacuated by the Confederate armies, 
the colored people, to whom it seemed almost as if the "last 



494 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

day" had come, greeted the strange, kindly figure of the 
President as if he had been their Saviour instead of merely 
their liberator. 

There is a story of one old Aunty who had a sick child 
in her arms when the President passed through the city. 
The child was alarmed at the surrounding riot, and was 
crying to come home, but the good woman kept trying to 
get the child to gaze at the President, which she was afraid 
to do, and she would try to turn the child's head in that 
direction, and would turn around herself in order to accom- 
plish the same object. 

"See yeah, honey," she would say, "look at de Saviour, 
an' you will git well. Touch de hem of his garment, honey, 
an' yur pain will be done gone." 

As the years have gone by, we have all learned, white 
folks and colored people. North and South, how much the 
country as a whole owes to the man who liberated the slaves. 
There is no one now, North or South, who believes that 
slavery was a good thing, even for those who seemed to 
profit most by it ; but hard and cruel as the system frequently 
was in the case of the black man, the white man suffered 
quite as much from the evils that it produced. In order to 
hold the negro in slavery, it was necessary to keep him in 
ignorance. The result was that the South condemned itself, 
not merely to employ none but the poorest and most expensive 
labor, but what was worse, to use all its higher intellectual, 
moral, and religious energies in defending before the world 
its right to hold another race, not merely in a condition of 
ignorance, but of moral and spiritual degradation. 

There is no task that an individual or a people can under- 
take which is so ungrateful, and so certain, in the long run, 
to fail, as that of holding down another individual or another 
race that is trying to rise. It is not possible, you know, for 
an individual to hold another individual down in the gutter 
without staying down there with him. So it is not possible 
for one race to devote a large share of its time and attention 
to keeping another race down, without losing some time and 



THE JANESVILLE COMMEMORATION 495 

some energy that might otherwise have been used in raising 
itself higher in the scale of civilization. 

Under the influence of slavery the South was fast getting 
out of touch and sympathy with all the generous, upbuilding, 
and civilizing influences of the world. 

Abraham Lincoln, in giving freedom to the black man, 
who was a slave, gave it at the same time to the white man, 
who was free. He not merely loosened the enslaved forces 
of nature in the Southern States, but he emancipated the 
whole United States from that sectional and fratricidal hatred 
which led the white man in the South to look upon his 
brother in the North as an enemy to his section and himself, 
and led the white man in the North to look upon his brother 
in the South as an enemy not merely to the nation, but also 
to mankind. I have had some experience of physical 
slavery, and I have known, too, what it is to hate men of 
another race, and I can say positively that there is no form 
of slavery which is so degrading as that which leads one man 
to hate another because of his race, his condition, or the 
color of his skin. 

All these things did not seem so clear to us before the 
"War as they do now, and yet there have always been people 
in the South who clearly saw the evils of slavery and opposed 
them. If the times had permitted these men in the South 
to look calmly upon the course of events, they would have 
found themselves in close sympathy with Abraham Lincoln. 
Now that the excitement of the anti-slavery agitation has 
died away, not merely these men, but many others in the 
South are beginning to see that during the whole course of 
the Civil War the South had no more sincere friend than the 
Abolitionist President of the United States, Abraham Lin- 
coln. He, at least, never forgot, during all the long and 
bloody struggle, that a time was coming when the men who 
fought for the South, and the men who fought for the Union 
must settle down side by side as fellow-citizens of the one 
indivisible Republic. 

Some one who was present when Lincoln heard the news 



496 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

of Lee's surrender said that Jeff Davis ought to be hung. 
The President in his reply quoted from his Inaugural Ad- 
dress, "Let us judge not that we be not judged." Another 
said that the sight of Libby prison forbade mercy. "Let 
us judge not," he repeated, "that we be not judged." This 
was said at the close of the War when the whole North was 
aflame with the news of victory. A year before, however, 
he had said in his jocular way, "We should avoid planting 
and cultivating too many thorns in the bosom of society." 
All through the War he saw, what Southern statesmen either 
shut their eyes to or failed to see, that even had the South 
won in the War, the old struggle between freedom and slavery- 
would have gone on just the same, under other banners and 
other battle cries. 

"Physically speaking," he said, in his first Inaugural Address, "we 
cannot separate. We cannot remove our respective sections from each 
other, nor build an impassable wall between them. A husband and- 
wife may be divorced, and go out of the presence and beyond the 
reach of each other; but the different parts of our country cannot do 
this. They cannot but remain face to face, and intercourse, either 
amicable or hostile, must continue between them. Is it possible, 
then, to make that intercourse more advantageous or more satisfac- 
tory after separation than before? Can aliens make treaties easier 
than friends can make laws? Can treaties be more faithfully enforced 
between aliens than laws can among friends? Suppose you go to 
war, you cannot fight always; and when, after much loss on both sides, 
and no gain on either, you cease fighting, the identical old questions 
as to terms of intercourse are again upon you." 

Whether as separate nations, or as separate States of the 
same nation, the struggle between freedom and slavery was 
bound to continue. Had it been possible to put an end to 
the conflict over slavery between the people of the Northern 
and people of the Southern States, it would soon have broken 
out again within the Southern States themselves. It should 
never be forgotten that there was always a minority in the 
South which openly or in silence opposed slavery. After 
1830, when the abolition agitation sprang up in the North 
and it came to be considered a sort of treason in the South 
to lend any sort of favor to abolition sentiments, the opinions 



THE JANESVILLE COMMEMORATION 497 

against slavery were no longer openly expressed in the South, 
but the opposition to slavery did not cease. Thousands of 
people who submitted to the censorship that was at that time 
imposed upon the open expression of opinion, silently evaded 
the laws, and upon some plea or other emancipated their 
slaves or sent them into free States, where their freedom 
was assured. This is shown by the fact of the constantly 
increasing number of "free negroes," both in the Northern 
and Southern States, and this, too, in spite of the efforts that 
were made to colonize this class of citizens abroad. 

No one knew these facts better than Lincoln. He men- 
tions them in his debates with Douglas. In this connection 
it should not be forgotten that Lincoln was a Southerner 
by birth. If he did not share the prejudices of the Southern 
people, he at least understood and sympathized with them. 
In his debate with Douglas he spoke as a Southerner rather 
than a Northern Abolitionist. 

The extreme Abolitionists of the Eastern States were fre- 
quently violently opposed to him. Because of his attitude 
on the fugitive slave law, Wendell Phillips wrote an article 
entitled "Abraham Lincoln, the Slave Hound of Illinois." 

The Northwest Territory, of which Ohio, Indiana, Illi- 
nois, Wisconsin, and Michigan were formed, was largely set- 
tled by Southerners who were opposed to slavery. These 
men remained Southerners in sentiment and tradition. 
They did not cease to love the South because they had gone 
into voluntary exile from it. In a certain sense it is true, 
therefore, that the abolition movement of the Middle West, 
which Lincoln represented, was the moral sentiment of the 
South turned against its own peculiar institutions. It was 
not the opposition of strangers nor of aliens in tradition and 
sentiment that the South met in Lincoln and in the anti- 
slavery people of Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, and Illinois, from 
whom he sprang. It was, to a large degree, the opposition 
of Southerners to that institution of the South that not only 
endangered the Union of the States, but was slowly and 
insidiously destroying the South. 

I think it is important to point out this connection of 



498 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Lincoln with the South, and with Southern anti-slavery senti- 
ment, because there are men in the South to-day who are 
working, silently and earnestly, still in the spirit of that 
elder generation of anti-slavery men, in order to complete 
the work that Lincoln began. In a certain way I may say 
that these men are the direct inheritors of that moral senti- 
ment of the South, which, as I have sought to suggest, was 
represented by Abraham Lincoln and the Southern anti- 
slavery men of the Middle "West. 

As the years have passed, all sections of the country have 
learned to look with altered views upon the men and the 
issues of the Civil War. Many things that seemed of over- 
shadowing importance forty or fifty years ago, now look 
small and insignificant. 

Many persons who were in the foreground then, have now 
moved into the background. Looking at these persons and 
events from a distance, as usually happens, they look smaller 
and less significant. There is only one figure that seems to 
grow constantly bigger and more impressive as the years go 
by. It is with a really great man as it is with a lofty tower 
standing in the midst of a crowded city. As long as you are 
near it, there are a multitude of smaller and more animated 
scenes and objects that distract your attention, and you get 
only the most distorted idea of the lofty structure near you. 
But as you move farther and farther away, other objects 
sink into insignificance, and it looms large and serene above 
them. For the first time you see the mighty edifice in its 
true proportions. 

As it is with the tower in the city, so it has been with 
Abraham Lincoln. Year by year he looms larger above the 
horizon of our national life — a great, serene, beneficent 
figure — which seems to stretch its arms out to us, saying to 
lis of that War as he did at Gettysburg : 

"It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished 
work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. 
It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining 
before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to 
that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; that 



THE JANESVILLE COMMEMORATION 499 

we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; 
that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and 
that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall 
not perish from the earth." 

Although each portion of the American people still look 
at Abraham Lincoln from a different angle and with widely 
different sentiments and feelings, it is still true, I believe, 
that the whole country has learned to honor and revere his 
memory. To the South he appears, as I have said, no longer 
as an enemy, but a wise and sincere friend. To the people 
who have inherited the traditions of the North he is the pre- 
server of the Union, the second founder of the nation, but to 
the negro people he will remain for all time the liberator of 
their race. In the eyes of the excited and ecstatic freedmen 
at the close of the War Lincoln appeared not merely as a 
great man, but as a personal friend ; not merely an emanci- 
pator, but a saviour. I confess that the more I learn of Lin- 
coln's life, the more I am disposed to look at him much as my 
mother and those early freedmen did, not merely as a great 
man, not merely as a statesman, but as one to whom I can 
certainly turn for help and inspiration— as a great moral 
leader, in whose patience, tolerance, and broad hrnnan sym- 
pathy there is salvation for my race, and for all those who 
are down, but struggling to rise. 



LINCOLN AND HIS RELATIONS WITH CONGRESS* 

HON. SHELBY M. CULLOM 

CONGRESS, in the days of Lincoln, was a conservative, 
hard-working body, jealous of its prerogatives, just as 
it has always been ; but there was far more intense excitement, 
bitter feeling, and general interest in Congress than there is 
to-day. President Lincoln was freely criticised ; he had bit- 
ter opponents in Congress, as he had outside ; but there were 
others who, with the great majority of the people, placed 
implicit faith in him and felt certain that he would carry 
the country through the awful crises and eventually save the 
Union. This was especially true among those who knew him 
best. With the War dragging its bloody trail the entire 
length of his administration, the national credit poor, taxes 
mounting upward, problems innumerable only to be solved 
by Congress, it can be readily seen that it was exceedingly 
important that the President should know intimately and 
judge correctly the men whose support he must seek in nearly 
every project he was called upon to undertake. Lincoln did 
know his men. There was never a President of the United 
States who could so well and so correctly judge men as 
Abraham Lincoln, and he was seldom, if ever, mistaken in 
his judgment. 

I called upon him at the White House a few months before 
he was assassinated and a short time after my election as 
a member of the House of Representatives. I had been 
visiting in Washington, and spent considerable time around 
Congress, talking with members and senators, and it seemed 
to me that scarcely any of the strong men were in favor of 
the President. I was greatly impressed and concerned on 
account of the number of adverse criticisms I had heard. 
Before leaving Washington I called upon the President, and 

* Copyright, 1909, by The Chicago Tribune. 

500 



THE JANESVILLE COMMEMORATION 501 

I asked him, "Mr. Lincoln, do you allow anybody to talk 
to you about yourself?" He said, "Certainly; sit down." 
I told him that I wanted to talk with him a little about 
what I had seen and heard around Congress since coming 
here, and said that it seemed to me that most of the strong 
men were against him. He replied, with a smile, "It is not 
quite so bad as that, ' ' and with that he took up a copy of the 
"Congressional Directory," with the remark that there were 
many congressmen on his side, and turning to the list of 
senators and representatives he went over it for my benefit. 
I saw that nearly every name was marked, and as he went 
down the list he commented on each, as, for instance : ' ' This 
man is for me"; "The best friend I have"; "He's not for 
me now, but I can win him over," and so on. I found that 
he knew almost positively how every man stood, and the great 
majority of them were for him. 

It was an interesting catalogue of personal characteristics, 
and I knew then that Abraham Lincoln's habit of studying 
men had not lapsed when he went to Washington ; and I saw, 
too, that he had a perfect knowledge of Congress and its 
personnel. 

I well recall a comment I heard him make concerning James 
G. Blaine, who was then in the House. Blaine had made a 
speech that day that had attracted attention. Lincoln said 
of him, "Blaine is one of the rising young men of our coun- 
try," an assertion which succeeding years proved to be true. 

I well recall the morning when the message came from 
Washington that the President had been killed, and it so 
happened that I was called upon to announce the terrible 
news to the great crowd assembled in the old State House 
Square in Springfield. 

Five years previous he had departed from Springfield for 
Washington, never to return. I clasped hands with him at 
parting, and there passed between us a conversation which 
strengthened my determination to go to Congress. I was the 
newly elected Speaker of the Illinois House of Representa- 
tives, and Lincoln had just attained his title "Mr. President," 
which I took delight in using. 



502 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

"Good-by, Mr, President," said I, "I will be down in 
Washington with you one of these days." "Come on, Mr. 
Speaker," he replied, "I hope you will appear there soon." 

After a few years I kept my promise, and immediately 
following my election to the House I took a trip to Washing- 
ton to look over the field of my coming labors, as the successor 
to Congressman John T. Stewart. I boldly entered the room 
of Secretary Nicolay at the White House, as I had been accus- 
tomed to do during my visits to Washington, and found, much 
to my surprise, that I had broken in on a conference between 
the President and Secretary Seward. President Lincoln, 
seeing me, as I was about to withdraw, said, "Come in, Cul- 
lom," and, turning to his Cabinet officer, "Seward, you re- 
member my old friend Stewart, who was here last term? 
Well, he was beaten for reelection, and this is the young man 
who beat him. ' ' 

There were many great and interesting men in both the 
House and Senate in those terrible days during the Civil 
War, and many of them continued leading figures during the 
days of reconstruction immediately following. With many 
of those I was personally, and later became more or less in- 
timately, acquainted. There was Fessenden of Maine, who 
succeeded as Secretary of the Treasury the dignified Salmon 
P. Chase, whom many people, including myself, thought in- 
dispensable, and succeeded him in the office so well that the 
country never felt the change. There was John Sherman in 
the Senate, even then one of the leaders, later to become one 
of our greatest Secretaries of the Treasury ; Thaddeus Stevens 
in the House, who wield jd an influence second to none; 
Charles Sumner, one of the great men of his day, who filled 
a peculiarly important place in the history of his time, then 
serving as Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. 
Senator Trumbull of Illinois was one of the leaders of the 
upper House and was recognized as one of the great lawyers 
of the nation. Hendricks of Indiana, Wilson of Massachu- 
setts, Howe of Wisconsin, Henderson of Missouri, Chandler 
of Michigan, were then in their prime. John A. Logan was, 
during the early part of Lincoln's administration, a member 



THE JANESVILLE COMMEMORATION 503 

of the House; resigning in 1861, he became the foremost 
volunteer officer of the Civil War. 

I regarded Thaddeus Stevens as the dominating figure in 
the House during the War and the days of reconstruction, 
but there were others who became famous in American politi- 
cal life later. There was Voorhees of Indiana, William B. 
Allison of Iowa, James G. Blaine of Maine, Conkling of New 
York, next to whom I occupied a seat and was practically 
at his elbow during his fierce struggle in debate with Blaine 
some years later. Owen Lovejoy represented one of the 
Illinois districts previous to my term in the House. I was 
at the White House when the news of his death was brought 
to Lincoln, and I recall the kindly manner in which he spoke 
of him. Lovejoy had been something of a radical in the 
House, and, although his radicalism had in a way aided Lin- 
coln, there were times when it grew too strong for the good 
of the cause in hand. Speaking of Lovejoy on this occasion, 
Lincoln said, "Pie was one of the best men in Congress. If 
he became too radical I always knew that I could send for 
him and talk it over and he would go back to the floor and 
do about as I wanted. ' ' 

Shortly before Lincoln was nominated as a candidate for a 
second term, Salmon P. Chase, a member of the Cabinet, had 
quietly undertaken to secure the nomination for himself. I 
was in Washington when the secret letter written by Senator 
Pomeroy, urging politicians to support the Chase candidacy, 
came out, and I was among those who urged that Chase be 
turned out of the Cabinet, and I so expressed myself to the 
President. He replied : ' ' Let him alone ; he can do no more 
harm where he is than on the outside. ' ' 

That was his way of looking at things. He was of too 
kindly a disposition, too great a man to punish any one for 
being against him, but at the same time he was more far- 
seeing than others. He knew that to remove Chase would 
only make a martyr of him ; to send him back to Ohio would 
only place him in a position to make trouble for the admin- 
istration, and so he simply let him alone, which was by far 
the wisest thing to do, until Mr. Chase resigned once too 



504 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

often, and then, one day, much to the chagrin of his Secretary 
of the Treasury, he accepted his resignation. 

No more striking illustration of Mr. Lincoln's magnanimity 
can be given than his appointment of Mr. Chase to be Chief 
Justice of the United States a few months after he had 
accepted his resignation as Secretary of the Treasury. It so 
happened that I was in Mr. Nicolay's office when Mr, Chase 
came to the White House to thank the President for his ap- 
pointment as Chief Justice. The door was ajar, and I heard 
the few words that passed between them. They were both 
extremely dignified. Mr. Chase thanked him in a few words, 
and the President simply responded that he hoped that Mr. 
Chase would do his duty, and so the interview closed. 

The Message to Congress the year I was elected was, as I 
recall it, a marvel of succinctness and frankness as to actual 
conditions prevailing in the land. A sunny and optimistic 
view of every situation was taken, however, and if the people 
wished to take a gloomy view of even disastrous war episodes, 
it was their own doing. At the time the Message was written 
General Sherman was attempting his famous march of three 
hundred miles directly through the insurgents' region. 
There were plenty of forebodings at Washington as to the 
eventual outcome. Lincoln dismissed the subject in his Mes- 
sage with these few words, after stating the undertaking, 
"The result not yet being known, conjecture in regard to it 
is not here indulged." 

In other words, Lincoln intimated to Congress that the 
country would cross no bridges until they were reached. 
However, there was contained in that Message to Congress, 
when the War was nearly over, a note of determination which 
left no doubt in the minds of those who read it that Lincoln 
still believed the sentiments he had expressed in his great 
speech wherein he said, "A house divided against itself can- 
not stand" — a speech which I heard him deliver, by the way, 
and I must confess that it was an utterance which was a bul- 
wark to me in those trying days when determination only 
gave way to doubt and fear. 

Those were dark days, but how soon was to come vindica- 



THE JANESVILLE COMMEMORATION 505 

tion of Lincoln's diagnosis that the issue could only be tried 
by war and decided by victory. In the early days of Spring 
came the campaigns around Richmond, and Lee was driven 
to the final stand, where he accepted bitter and unconditional 
surrender. 

To Lincoln was given but a glimpse of the Promised Land. 
He lived to see the power of rebellion broken, but was sent 
to his eternal reward before he saw the authority of the Union 
established in all the rebellious States. He was permitted 
to go up into the mountain, Nebo, and to catch a glimpse of 
the Promised Land of a restored nation, but his weary feet 
were not permitted to cross the border that separated it from 
the Wilderness of Civil War. With his gentle but firm 
manner, he had led Congress to do his bidding. The rising 
curtain of succeeding years has only served to show the soul 
of wisdom which that legislative body had before it during 
those dark days as a guiding angel. 



THE COMMEMORATION ABROAD 



THE COMMEMORATION ABROAD 

THE truly national character of the commemoration of 
Lincoln 's Centenary is shown not alone by the celebration 
of the day in every city and hamlet, church and school, home 
and library; by rich and poor, educated and unlettered; by 
the most distinguished officials of the Nation, State, or city, and 
by the humblest private citizens ; but perhaps more than all 
else by the way in which the day was observed by absent Amer- 
icans on foreign shores. 

The Lincoln Centenary was widely celebrated abroad by the 
American colonies, under the direction of the American con- 
suls, and at the American embassies. These celebrations evi- 
dence the abiding interest of Americans the world over in 
the life of ' ' the first American. ' ' Wherever groups of Amer- 
icans were found, the day was given over to patriotic exer- 
cises, in commemoration of the man who stands, as never be- 
fore, for all that America means to the hearts of her sons and 
daughters. 

The imiversal interest which this great American awakened 
was also sho^\Ti by the recognition of the Centenary of his 
birth by the citizens of these foreign nations, and by the 
tributes to him by the sons of Japan and England, Germany 
and France, Italy and Brazil. 

England, the country perhaps closest to us of all, by ties 
of blood and common ideals, paid homage to the day through 
the person of its King, Edward VIL, addressing to Am- 
bassador Bryce at Washington the following message for 
transmission to our Secretary of State and the people of the 
United States: 

"His Majesty's government has learned with interest of the prepara- 
tions which are being made by the President and people of the United 
States to commemorate, on February 12, the anniversary of the birth 
of Abraham Lincoln. 

"I have to request Your Excellency to convey to the Secretary of 
State, the cordial sympathy of His Majesty's government, with the spirit 

509 



510 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

which inspires the United States on this celebration, and their desire 
to share in paying a tribute of honor and appreciation to the strength 
and simplicity of President Lincoln's character." 

The Mayor of London, England, cabled to President Roose- 
velt the following message : 

"The Lincoln city flag waves over the Guild Hall to-day in sympa- 
thetic commemoration of the event." 

At Rochdale, Lancaster, England, a great meeting was 
held, presided over by the Mayor, while Hon. John L. Grif- 
fith, American Consul at Liverpool, delivered the Centenary 
address. Other speakers recalled that Rochdale 's great towns- 
man, John Bright, had loyally supported the cause of Lin- 
coln. 

A cable message was also received from Manchester, Eng- 
land, where the crowds, gathered to take part in the com- 
memoration of the day, over-taxed the capacity of the hall 
provided, and necessitated an over-flow meeting. 

Brazil honored Lincoln and Lincoln's country through the 
participation of Ambassador Nabuco in the celebration at 
AVashington, D. C, while in its own towns and cities, national 
flags were hoisted on all the federal, state, and municipal build- 
ings ; the Brazilian warships were dressed, and at ten o 'clock 
on the morning of the Lincoln Centenary day, both warships 
and fortresses fired a salute of twenty-one guns. 

At Paris, France, the American Club observed the birth- 
days of both Washington and Lincoln, with joint impressive 
ceremonies, while on the Centenary day itself the Lyceum 
Club gave a banquet at which were present Ambassador and 
Mrs. White and two himdred Americans resident in Paris. 
Dr. Henry Van Dyke, of Princeton University, acted as the 
speaker of this occasion, as well as of the commemoration at 
the American Club. 

At Berlin, Germany, there were two commemorative meet- 
ings; one at the University of Berlin, under the direction of 
Professor Felix Adler, and the other an essentially American 
meeting at the home of the Ambassador. 

In Rome, Italy, a special banquet was held, attended by 
one hundred and ten Americans, including Ambassador Lloyd 



THE COMMEMORATION ABROAD 511 

Griscom, Signor Nathan, Mayor of Rome, and several other 
Italian dignitaries, Ambassador Griscom making the princi- 
pal address of the evening. 

In the Hawaiian Islands a civic and military parade marked 
the day, with exercises at the Opera House in the evening; 
while at Manila, and all through the Philippine Islands, pa- 
triotic exercises were held in schools during the day, with a 
general celebration at Manila, presided over by Governor- 
General James Smith, at which the principal address was de- 
livered by Mr. Justice Johnson of Manila. 

It is regretted that an account of these various foreign and 
territorial celebrations, fuller than we have here been able to 
offer, cannot be given, with the full text of the speeches de- 
livered that day in Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, and in 
the islands of the sea, but the limits of this volume permit the 
inclusion of only a very few. 



MANCHESTER, ENGLAND* 

THE public meeting held in Manchester to celebrate the 
Centenary, led to a remarkable demonstration of interest 
in Abraham Lincoln's life and work. When the meeting 
was planned, the offer by the Lord Mayor of the use of his 
parlor (a room with accommodation for about four hundred 
people) was accepted readily, for it was anticipated that 
it would be adequate for the occasion. Instead of four 
himdred nearly five times as many people made their way 
to the Town Hall in the afternoon, and an overflow meeting 
in the large hall had hastily to be arranged. Even then 
there were no spare places, for while the surplus audience 
quite filled the large hall, the smaller room was packed to 
the doors and scores of people had to stand. To prevent dis- 
appointment, the speakers addressed each gathering in turn. 
Bishop Welldon, Dean of Manchester, was the Chairman in 
the Lord Mayor's parlor, and the Deputy Mayor (Mr. Coun- 
cillor Harrop) presided in the large hall. 

* Extract from a Manchester newspaper. 



512 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Bishop Welldon recalled the dates of Lincoln's birth and 
death, and spoke of the deep impression made on the citizens 
of Manchester by the circumstances of the President's end, 

BISHOP WELLDON 'S SPEECH* 

A public meeting was held in the Old Town Hall in 
King Street, and a resolution was passed expressing "horror 
and detestation of the deplorable crime which has resulted in 
the violent death of the chief magistrate of the American 
Republic." Forty-four years later we are met here to ex- 
press our faith that Abraham Lincoln "though dead yet 
speaketh." His name is imperishably associated with one 
of those supreme moral triumphs which ennoble and exalt 
the life of nations, which are not achieved without bloodshed 
and without agony, but having once been won endure forever- 
more. The slave trade has become so entirely a matter of 
history that few who are present to-day can imagine what it 
was. But if anybody cares to read a chapter of a book which 
has quite lately appeared — Lehmann's "Memories of Half a 
Century," and the chapter entitled "Richmond Slave 
Market" — he will realize and will never forget the unspeak- 
able shame of the slave trade. 

It is sometimes said that President Lincoln was cut off 
before his work was done. To my mind his work was done 
on that day, April 3, 1865, when the flag of the Union was 
hoisted at Richmond over the house in which the Confederate 
Assembly had been wont to meet, that day when, as he 
rode silently through the streets to his house, "the colored 
people in multitudes flocked around him, they rent the air 
with their shouts, they danced, they sang, they prayed for 
blessings on his head, they wept, kneeling at his feet." 

The roll of the Presidents of the United States of America 
is one of which any country may be proud. Among those 
Presidents, Lincoln, if he is not the greatest, is at least the 
most familiarly known. The magnitude of the meetings 
gathered to-day in his honor is a witness to the undying 
lustre of his name; but in him there were certain elements 

* Given in part only. 



THE COMMEMORATION ABROAD 513 

which appealed, and do still appeal, to the popular mind. 
He rose, as other Presidents have risen, from a humble state 
of life. There was in him a simple, homely eloquence. 
Everybody knows his dictum about swapping horses. But 
I always like better that saying of his which he was wont 
to put in the form of a dream, when he saw somebody watch- 
ing him who said, "That is a common-looking fellow," and 
he replied, "Yes, God prefers common-looking people; that 
is why He has made so many of them." 

Lincoln was characterized by a certain background of 
melancholy, which gave a charm and character to his youth. 
It is to his eternal credit that he saw the truth respecting 
the Union in the United States, that he saw on what con- 
ditions that Union could endure, and that he resolved, what- 
ever the cost might be, to preserve it. I recall to your mind 
those words of his, "A house divided against itself cannot 
stand. I believe this Government cannot endure permanently 
half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be 
dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do ex- 
pect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one 
thing or all the other." Thank God, it has become all the 
home of free men. 

No words can exaggerate the weight of responsibility which 
rested upon Lincoln before and during the Civil War. It 
is impossible to admire too strongly his integrity, his sym- 
pathy, his love of peace, which never failed him in the hours 
of battle and of victory. I do not think anyone here will 
forget that in all that he did he was actuated by a strong, 
if somewhat undefined, religious feeling. He believed — and 
may I not say rightly believed? — that in his great crusade 
for liberty the Almighty stood at his right hand. He re- 
mains as one of the heroic figures of all history, for he laid 
down his life that the slaves might be free. 

Vice-ChanceUor Hopkinson, of Manchester University, re- 
lated some of the incidents which occurred in Lancashire 
at the time of the Civil War, and recalled memories of the 
workers in the cotton trade who supported the cause of 
liberty. 



514, ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

''"Was there anything in the history of the last century," 
he asked, "more noble than the way in which the working 
people of Lancashire insisted that no part should be taken 
in that struggle, although they were hearing from time to 
time how the ships of the North were blockading the only 
ports from which supplies of cotton could come?" 

There were (he pointed out) many lessons to be learned 
from the War. If a nation is to be strong it must be in- 
spired by a strong feeling of unity. In time of stress there 
must be that kind of courage which, in spite of reverses at 
first, will go on till victory is won. And, lastly, if engaged 
in any struggle, whether in politics or in war, men gained 
enormously in power if a great cause for the benefit of 
humanity was before them. 

Abraham Lincoln's personal life emphasized one or two 
dangers with which England and America were faced to-day. 
There was a want of simplicity in the lives of the better-to- 
do classes of both nations. There was a perpetual desire 
to talk, a perpetual desire for publicity and advertisement. 
The simplicity of Lincoln's life, and his silence, even more 
than his speeches, were eloquent on these points. 

Lord Stanley of Alderley described himself as one of 
the few people present who had been face to face with Lin- 
coln, "It is forty-five years since I met him in Washington, 
yet the memory of his face is still fresh to me. It is easy 
but unnecessary to dwell on the fine points in Abraham 
Lincoln's character, but looking back on that period I feel 
that the merits and qualities of the President were in some 
degree the merits and qualities of the people in the crisis 
through which they went. Lincoln would have done nothing 
if he had not had the people of the United States behind 
him. His career shows what a free people can do when 
they are stirred by a great moral cause." Of the lessons to 
be drawn from Lincoln's career, Lord Stanley said there 
was one which might be emphasized. Many, nowadays, were 
in danger of forgetting the earnest conviction which ani- 
mated their forefathers, that human rights and equal justice 



THE COMMEMORATION ABROAD 515 

are the paramount duties of the State. Everybody con- 
demned slavery, but was there not to-day a tendency to 
acquiesce in and even to approve servile conditions? 

Mr. Francis Ashworth, president of the Manchester Cham- 
ber of Commerce; Mr. George Milner, the Rev. Dr. Good- 
rich, and INIiss Margaret Ashton spoke of the noble work 
done by Lincoln. Miss Ashton said that just as the women 
of Lancashire fought on the side of liberty during the Civil 
"War, so they were fighting for their own liberty to-day. 

At the conclusion of the speeches it was decided to tele- 
graph to America the following message: 

"Manchester citizens honor Lincoln, and send heartiest expressions 
of good-will." 

Mr. J. Duxbury then recited Lincoln's great Gettysburg 
Speech, and later he gave Walt Whitman's "O Captain, 
My Captain." 

When Major Church Howe, the United States Consul in 
Manchester, rose to acknowledge the speeches made, he was 
received with long and hearty applause. Such a manifesta- 
tion of friendship, he said, made him feel he was at home 
among his own people. President Roosevelt had likened 
Lincoln to Bunyan's Greatheart in the "Pilgrim's Progress." 
That day in every city, in every town, and in every hamlet 
in America all business had ceased in order that one great 
mass meeting of the people might honor the name of the 
great emancipator. That day, too. President Roosevelt, the 
British Ambassador, and the Ambassadors of nearly every 
country in the world were assembled down in the State of 
Kentucky, and, around the little cabin in which Abraham 
Lincoln was bom, were assisting at the laying of the corner- 
stone of the memorial hall, built by the people of the United 
States. 

"I am not here," Major Church Howe continued, ''to 
deliver a eulogy on the life of Mr. Lincoln. That was for 
you to do, and grandly you have done it. I am here to thank 



516 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

you for this great interest, for the cordial manner in which 
you bring back to memory Abraham Lincoln, the great, the 
commoner, the man of the people, the man who believed in 
the government 'of the people, for the people, by the people.' 

"I have been asked to relate some of my experiences as 
a soldier of the Civil War, and I do so with a great deal of 
pride. I am proud that I was a soldier under the great 
Commander-in-chief Abraham Lincoln. You must remember 
that our army was made up of the boys of the country. 
In my own regiment, the iSrst regiment that responded to 
the call, there were not twenty per cent, over twenty-two 
years old. The soldiers of the army were the youth of the 
country. And they responded as the English boy would 
respond to-day if he was called upon. The American boy 
was patriotic, like the English boy. I belonged, as a boy 
of seventeen years, to the Massachusetts militia, which is 
similar to your Territorial Force. The War was commenced 
by the South, not by the North, and Mr. Lincoln, as Com- 
mander-in-chief, acted on the defensive. The South, which 
had enjoyed the fruits of slavery for generations, believing 
that it was right, that the slave was a chattel and property 
that could be bought and sold, that wife could be separated 
from husband and children from father and mother, went into 
the War in the belief that it could conquer. When Lincoln 
stood in the way, they declared their intention to establish 
a union of their own. It was then that Mr. Lincoln saw he 
was in danger. You can realize now how little he thought 
the War would amount to, when his first call was for only 
seventy-five thousand troops. Among those troops was the 
regiment of which I was a member — the old 6th Massa- 
chusetts. At six o'clock in the afternoon we received notice 
to go to the armory. We took off our clothing, put on our 
uniforms, and at nine o'clock were on our way to Wash- 
ington. 

"Upon passing through Maryland, a slave-owTiing State, 
on the nineteenth of April, about two o'clock in the afternoon, 
an assault was made on that regiment and the first blood 
was shed. We proceeded, and in an hour's time we were 



THE COMMEMORATION ABROAD 517 

at Washington. Lincoln met us. I recollect that as we lined 
up he came down the line and shook hands with every boy, 
and thanked us for coming. And then he marched with us 
to the Senate Chamber, where we stood guard for weeks. 
After that he was continually coming to us, talking with 
every one. 

"Oh, he was a commoner, he was a democrat, he was a 
man who felt that you were as good as he was. And we all 
loved him. He was a gaunt, tall man, better than six foot, 
homely and ungainly. But when you came to listen to his 
talk, you realized what was in the man." 

Major Church Howe went on to describe Lincoln's kind- 
ness of heart, how he reprieved a man condemned to be shot 
for falling asleep when on sentry duty, and how he won his 
way into the hearts of the parents as into the hearts of the 
soldiers. 

In closing, the speaker emphasized the sincerity of the 
good-will which existed between the British and American 
people. ** There are those," he said, "who pretend that we 
are not as cordial as we should be, and that the cordiality 
which exists is commercial only. I stand here to say that 
that is not true. The two countries of the world that stand 
more closely to each other than any others are Great Britain 
and the United States. We are one people." 

The meeting passed unanimously a vote of thanks to 
Major Church Howe, and to the Lord Mayor for the use of 
the Town Hall. This was proposed by Mr. William Tatter- 
sail and seconded by the Rev. C. Peach. 

When the meeting was over Major Church Howe expressed 
his surprise and delight at the remarkable success of the 
celebration. He said that during his twelve years' experi- 
ence of England he had never had such a glorious afternoon 
or seen such a clear demonstration of good-will towards his 
country. "It has been wonderful," he added, "quite spon- 
taneous and altogether hearty. I think that Manchester must 
have eclipsed every other place in the country to-day. ' ' 

At the overflow meeting the speakers were the same as 
those who had addressed the chief gathering, with the addi- 
tion of the Rev. J. Hirst HoUowell. 



518 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



BERLIN, GERMANY* 

THERE were two commemorative meetings in Berlin, one 
at the University of Berlin under the direction of Pro- 
fessor Felix Adler, and the other an essentially American 
gathering at the home of the American Ambassador. 

The large auditorium of the University in which Professor 
Felix Adler, the "Roosevelt" Exchange-professor, gave his 
commemorative address on Abraham Lincoln, was filled, to 
practically the last standing-place on Friday, with an audience 
containing many distinguished people from the German 
official as well as the academic world. The American Am- 
bassador and Mrs. David Jayne Hill were present, as well 
as perhaps a score of representative Americans. The body 
of the hall was filled with Professor Adler 's regular class of 
German students, whose numbers have increased continually 
during his term of activity here. 

The Professor showed himself a master of German, and 
spoke not only clearly and fluently, but with graphic force of 
expression. His sketch of Lincoln's life and life-work, which 
probed deeply into the psychology of the great American 
liberator, was listened to with profound interest throughout, 
to judge by the atmosphere of deep attention which pervaded 
the hall. 

Professor Adler pointed out how difficult it is to bring 
home to a gathering of cultured Europeans all that Ameri- 
cans understand by the name of Abraham Lincoln — that 
"raw-boned American," ^'echt amerikanischer Typ," rising 
from the ranks, "aws der tiefsten Tiefe," from ' ' Lohnknecht" 
to President, and finally the founder of the American Union. 
Germans know Lincoln best in the character of emancipator, 
as the liberator of the negro, but they see the humanitarian 
motives by which he was guided, rather than the political 

* Extract from The Daily Record printed in Berlin. 



THE COMMEMORATION ABROAD 519 

ideals wliicli caused him to demand abolition, not only for 
the sake of freedom in the abstract, but for the sake of 
political unity. Professor Adler put the humanitarian side 
of the subject somewhat in the background and turned a 
strong search-light upon Lincoln's lofty political aims. 

One of the striking features of the address was the really 
beautiful portrait which the Exchange-professor drew of 
Lincoln as ruler — truly the servant of the people, subservient 
to their will ; but at the same time their educator, developing 
in them according to his needs the intellect and the reason- 
ing power, so that while he served he ruled and led. 

Professor Adler finally unveiled the bronze bust of Lincoln 
which he is presenting to the Berlin University as a me- 
mento of his activity here. The bust, which is faithfully 
reproduced from the striking original by Leonard Volk in 
the National Museum at Washington, will be placed in the 
Roosevelt room 

A few words of cordial and eulogistic thanks were then 
spoken by the Rector on behalf of the University, both for 
Professor Adler 's address and for his liberal gift which he 
was assured was at least quite unnecessary in order to keep 
his memory green in Berlin. The Rector also referred to the 
great honor and gratification which the University authori- 
ties hope next year to experience with Mr. Roosevelt in their 
midst as lecturer. 

Among those present were Baron von dem Bussche, of the 
Foreign Office; leading officials of the "Kultusministerium".; 
Professor Wilhelm Forster, astronomer, and head of the 
"Ethical Culture" society in Germany; Professor and Mrs. 
Alois Brandl, and a host of other representatives of the 
University faculties; Frau Rosa Poppe, of the Kgl. Schau- 
spielhaus; Geh. Rat. Ludwig Goldberger, etc. 

Some Americans present were: Mrs. Felix Adler and 
Mrs. William Morris Davis, Rev. Dr. Dickie, Consul General 
Thackara, Mr. Wm. C. Dreher, Dr. and Mrs. Geo. Watson, 
Dr. and Mrs. C. L. Babcock, Dr. Alice Luce, Mrs. F. L. 



520 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Keppler, Mrs. J. H. Honan, Miss Carrie F. Smith, Miss 
Idelle Morrison, Mr, Giinther Thomas. 

An interesting personality present was Philip Loewenthal, 
of New York, a veteran of the Civil War who went out with 
Lincoln's corps of volunteers in 1861. 

A second, more general, celebration of the Lincoln Cen- 
tenary took place in the afternoon at the home of the Amer- 
ican Ambassador and Mrs. Hill. A general invitation had 
been extended to all Americans who desired to honor the 
memory of Lincoln, with the result that about five hundred 
Americans filled the reception-rooms at Bismarck Strasse 4. 
Patriotic feeling ran high, and there was an immense amount 
of enthusiasm during the rendering of the programme, which 
included the singing of "My Country 'T is of Thee," the 
"Star Spangled Banner," and "Dixie," and the rendering 
of several selections of a thoroughly American order by 
individual musicians. 

The speakers of the occasion were Ambassador David Jayne 
Hill, Consul-General Thackara, and Professor Felix Adler. 

Professor Davis, who has up till now been known on 
"Colony" occasions only as a humorous speaker, came out 
in a new vein, reading a set of verses on Lincoln of which 
he himself was the composer, and which called forth sincere 
appreciation. Professor Felix Adler 's address was on the 
same lofty scale as at the midday celebration at the Univer- 
sity, and was again greatly enjoyed. It remained for the 
Ambassador to deliver the address which w^as the feature 
of the afternoon. Dr. Hill, who spoke last, had originally 
intended merely to thank the previous speakers and the 
musicians of the afternoon, adding just a few words in 
honor of Lincoln. But the general enthusiasm of the occa- 
sion and the exceptionally large American gathering, added, 
no doubt, to the unanimously expressed desire that he should 
speak at length, prevailed upon the Ambassador to continue. 
The result was a masterpiece of simple eloquence, such as 
Lincoln himself might have delivered, and which cannot be 
reproduced in cold print with any justice. Dr. Hill re- 



THE COMMEMORATION ABROAD 521 

ferred to the original erroneous idea of Lincoln, whicli repre- 
sented him as a despot and a tyrant, as a hard, self-willed 
man, and showed how biographical research had proved the 
utter fallacy of this view. He compared Lincoln to "a 
great rock in a surging sea," as he stood calm and deter- 
mined amidst the passions of North and South, and referred 
to Lincoln's political philosophy. Abraham Lincoln repre- 
sented the political rights of all people, from the lowest 
stratum upwards ; but how, asked Dr. Hill, did Lincoln come 
to represent this particular form of political philosophy? 
Simply because he himself, in his own unique life and per- 
sonality, represented all the people. He himself had lived 
the life of every class in turn, from the lowest to the highest ; 
"like a river which gathers unto itself a thousand rivulets 
and rivers as it flows on full-breasted to the sea," Lincoln 
gathered unto himself all the wisdom, the wit, the pathos, 
the humor, and the everyday philosophy of the common 
people. His personality was the incarnation of all these ele- 
ments; and when Lincoln's soul reached Heaven its claim 
for admittance was based on no Order, on no title or patent 
of nobility, but on the simple fact that the man was the 
elected representative of the majesty of the common people. 
In addition to the large gathering of Americans, the fol- 
lowing notabilities were observed among the audience : Herr 
von Holleben, former Ambassador at "Washington ; Excelleuz 
von Versen ; Frau von Hegermann-Lindencrone, wife of the 
Danish Minister, who had just returned from witnessing 
the departure of the King and Queen of England at the 
Lehrter Bahnhof; and Professors Paszkowski and von Mar- 
tins, of Berlin University. 



522 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

LINCOLN'S HUNDREDTH BIRTHDAY 

February 12, 1909. 

WILLIAM MORRIS DAVIS 
Harvard Exchange-Professor at the University of Berlin. 

We name a day and thus commemorate 
The hero of our nation's bitter strife; 
The martyr who for freedom gave his life. 
We feel the day made holy by his fate. 

The wheels of time then turn their ceaseless round, 

And slowly wear our memory away: 

The holy day becomes a holiday; 

Its motive changes with its change of sound. 

Let not our purpose thus be set aside: 
An hour, 'twixt work and pleasure, let us pause. 
And consecrate ourselves to serve the cause 
For which our hero strove, our martyr died. 

He lived to reunite our severed land ; 

To liberate a million slaves he died. 

And that the great experiment be longer tried 

Wliere each one ruled, in ruling has a hand. 

What tho' the pessimists, amid their fears. 
The great experiment to failure doom. 
Let us recall his trust in time of gloom, 
And steadfast persevere a thousand years. 

Tho' sure that vict'ries new will yet be won. 
Like those our fathers gained laboriously, 
'T is not for us to boast vaingloriously 
As if our battles were already done. 



THE COMMEMORATION ABROAD 523 

Our elders might have sung with better grace 
The verse that vaunts us ever free and brave, 
Had not our land so long oppressed the slave, 
Stolen from over sea, to our disgrace. 

Yet in our pride, how little right have we 
To blame our elders for an ancient wrong 
That gave the weak in bondage to the strong. 
Are we ourselves so wholly brave and free? 

Yes, with primeval courage, brave and strong, 
When banded 'gainst a foe ; yes, free from kings — 
But not so brave in smaller things 
That we should celebrate owselves in song. 

Not that it counts for naught that we have grown 

To be the leaders of a continent, 

And not that we could be for long content 

'Mid any other folk except our own. 

But that we must not lightly over-rate 
Our qualities : if on our faults I lay 
A certain emphasis, 't is not to-day 
Ourselves, but Lincoln whom we celebrate. 

For he was brave, a true American — 
Unselfish, kindly, patient, firm, discerning, 
His honest, homely wisdom outweighed learning; 
He stood for service to his fellow man. 

How think of him and not condemn the use 
Of public office turned to private ends, 
Of petty fraud, for which each one pretends 
To find in others' frauds his own excuse? 



524 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

How can we think of him and not repent 
The shaded line we draw 'twixt wrong and right; 
Of him, and not resolve, with all our might, 
To carry on the great experiment ? 

If most of us have no great tasks to do, 
Let us, like him, be faithful in things small. 
Our nation 's drama makes us actors all ; 
If only splitting rails, we '11 split them true. 

If troubles thicken, let us still deserve 

To solve them all as Lincoln would to-day; 

If dangers threaten, let us not betray 

The cause that Lincoln, living yet, would serve. 

Here in a distant foreign land we pause, 
'Twixt work and pleasure, to commemorate 
His noble life. How better than to consecrate 
Ourselves to play our part in Lincoln's cause? 



THE MAN FOR THE HOUR 

ALEXANDER MONTGOMERY THACKARA 

THE literature inspired by Lincoln's record is vast in 
quantity and rich in quality, and to do justice to talent, 
requires talent. It is not for me to speak of his distinction 
as a lawyer, his achievements as a statesman or of his historic 
guidance of a nation in the most trying time of its existence. 

From a stump speaker and corner grocery debater, he 
lived to take his place in the front rank of immortal orators, 
whose lucidity of speech surprised and enthralled his hearers. 
He rarely failed to seize an opportunity to illustrate a situa- 
tion by substituting a story for an argument, and left his 
listeners to make their own deductions. 

We are all familiar with his humor, his melancholy, his 
Btrange mingling of energy and indolence, his unconventional 



THE COMMEMORATION ABROAD 525 

character, his frugality, his tenderness and his courage. 
Could Lincoln have foreseen the place he now holds in the 
hearts of the nation, which greatly owes its preservation to 
his wise guidance, his great heart would have been spared 
many a pang which his political enemies inflicted upon him. 
Could he have been granted a vision of those countrymen 
he loved better than himself, in America and throughout the 
world, meeting together in his memory — proud to have such 
a ruler, a father who saved his children from a family 
breach — his fine nature, in which the keynotes were malice 
towards none and charity for all, would have been saved 
many a hurt. For Lincoln, of whom we think as beyond 
fitting praise, as he is beyond reproach, had sad moments of 
self-doubting and self-depreciation. Many incidents of his 
life show this side of his character, but it was the other side 
that predominated when occasion demanded and made him 
the man for the hour in our greatest need. 

An anecdote which was told in my presence by Dr. Nich- 
olas Murray Butler, President of Columbia College, and 
which doubtless many of you have heard, will illustrate his 
firmness when sure of his own position, Lincoln had for 
a long time advocated the abolition of slax'ery. After care- 
ful study and deep thought, he prepared a rough draft of 
his Emancipation Proclamation and submitted it to his Cab- 
inet Officers for their opinion as to its feasibility, its pro- 
priety, and its wording. One and all expressed their 
disapprobation of the scheme, stating that the time was not 
opportune, and that it was extremely bad politics, etc. Lin- 
coln was impressed by the unanimity of the adverse senti- 
ment of his advisers, but after giving the subject deep and 
prayerful reconsideration, some two weeks later he again 
presented the Proclamation to his Cabinet with some slight 
changes in the context, and stated that he desired to have 
their final vote to settle the matter. AVhen the question was 
put, Lincoln voted "Aye." The rest of the Cabinet to a man 
cast their votes in the negative. Lincoln stood up and with 
a firm and impressive voice said: "Gentlemen, the ayes 
have it," and the famous Proclamation was issued. 



526 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

To the real orators who are going to follow me, I leave the 
handling of this inspiring subject — Lincoln — which is kin- 
dling a flame of patriotic enthusiasm that spans the world, 
for I venture to say that not only in the United States, but 
in Europe and in the Far-East, there will be found groups 
of Americans gathered to-day for the same purpose that has 
brought us together. All know the pall of sorrow which 
spread over our country when he met his tragic death. 
Could he be with us and see the splendid progress our country 
has made since the fatal day in April, 1865, he would surely 
realize that his martyrdom was not in vain. 



THE COMMEMORATION ABROAD 527 



PARIS, FRANCE 

Doctor Henry van Dyke furnishes this account of the 
meeting of the American Club at Paris: "The banquet of 
the American Club of Paris, was held in the Hotel d' Or- 
leans on February 22, 1909. It was a joint celebration of 
the memory of Washington and Lincoln. Colonel Theodore 
Ayrault Dodge, a veteran of the Civil War, presided. 
Among those present were: Hon. Henry White, Ambassa- 
dor to France; Hon. Stewart L. Woodford, ex- Ambassador 
to Spain ; Colonel Frank L. Mason, Consul-general ; and rep- 
resentatives of the French Republic, and the city of Paris. 
The meeting was one of the largest in the history of the 
club." The principal address follows: 

FROM WASHINGTON TO LINCOLN 

DR. HENRY VAN DYKE 

FROM Washington to Lincoln ! From the stately pillared 
mansion at Mt. Vernon to the Illinois log cabin, from 
silver shoe-buckles to square-toed boots, from the Virginia 
landed proprietor to the rough and ready Western lawyer — 
what a change ! There are some who regret it, and lament the 
good old times when all the Fathers of the Revolution (per- 
haps) wore silk stockings and knee breeches. This regret re- 
minds me of the two Irishmen who went to hear Mr. Bryan 
on his return from Europe: *'Ah! " said one, ''Bill Bryan 
is not the man he used to be." "No," said the other, "and 
he never was either." There are some who rejoice in the 
supposed change, and hail in Lincoln the advent of a new 
democracy. This rejoicing and self-congratulation remind me 
of the old New England farmer, who returned a volume of 
Plato which Emerson had lent to him, with the remark, "I 
kinder like that old Greek feller; he's got some o' my idees." 



528 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

But as a matter of fact, both the regret and the rejoicing are 
M'asted. 

The change from Washington to Lincoln is one of form, 
not of substance; one of dress, and not of spirit. It is, in 
fact, only an outward modification, which does not touch at 
all the continuity of moral and political ideas, or the un- 
broken strain of patriotism which made both of those men 
representative of America. 

Washington was not the last American, nor was Lincoln 
"the first American," though Lowell said so. Franklin was 
an American, and Alexander Hamilton was an American, 
Philip Schuyler was an American, John Jay was an American. 
Everyone of those men who had spirit enough to take his 
heritage from English, or French, or Scotch, or Dutch stock, 
and la}^ it at the shrine of freedom and equal rights, was an 
American. 

Washington and Lincoln were rooted in the same soil of 
fundamental justice. They expanded their manhood in the 
same air of liberty. They were like a stately silver pine and 
a rugged black oak, growing together on the same hillside, 
and spreading abroad their strength in the free winds of 
heaven. 

I am struck, not by the difference in their dress, but by 
the resemblance in their hearts. They lived by and for the 
same aims. They hitched their wagon to the same star. It 
was Washington who saw most clearly the vital necessity of 
Union, and who did most to make it firm and durable. It 
was Lincoln who met the dangers which Washington had 
predicted would assail that Union, and who saved it from 
them, and made it indissoluble. It was Washington who 
first gave to America the lesson of toleration and forgiveness, 
by his treatment of the men who calumniated and con- 
spired against him during the Revolution — forgiving all, as 
he said, for the sake of the common cause. It was Lincoln 
who wrote the words of peace and reconciliation upon the 
firmament, when the lurid clouds of Civil War had rolled 
by, so that Jefferson Davis said of him, "Since the fall of the 
Confederacv, the South has suffered no loss so great as the 



THE COMMEMORATION ABROAD 529 

death of Abraham Lincoln." It was Washington who saw 
the inconsistency, the shame, and the peril of slavery. It was 
Lincoln who ended it. 

Washington was a soldier who fought for the su- 
premacy of just and peaceful laws. Lincoln was a lawyer 
who invoked the sword to defend a supreme equity. Both 
men were too great for personal jealousy, too noble for per- 
sonal revenge, too simple for personal affectation, whether 
of roughness or of smoothness, too sincere for personal con- 
cealment. They had no secrets from their country. They 
served her with a whole, clean, and glad heart; and they 
asked no greater reward than her service. 

Washington used long words. Lincoln used short words. 
But they both used words for the same purpose; they both 
had that kind of eloquence which is simply the result of 
manly virtue, sober thought, and straight utterance. Through 
the speeches of both there ran three main ideas: — first, a 
recognition of the nation's dependence upon Almighty God; 
second, a strong emphasis upon the necessity of union at the 
sacrifice of factional differences and interests; third, a steady 
insistence on moral ideas as the foundation of national great- 
ness. 

They were not sceptics, they were believers; they were 
not clever cynics, they were sober enthusiasts. They were 
not plaster of Paris saints. Washington had, beneath his 
quiet exterior, a power of indignation against evil which 
made him use, at times, language which was not fit to print. 
Lincoln had a sense of humor which made him, occasionally, 
tell stories whose latitude exceeded their longitude. But at 
heart they were both profoundly serious men. ' ' When I die, ' ' 
said Abraham Lincoln, "I want it said of me by those who 
know me best that I always plucked a thistle and planted a 
flower where I thought a flower would grow." "If I know 
mj own heart," wrote Washington from Valley Forge, "I 
could offer myself as a living sacrifice to the butchering enemy, 
provided that would contribute to the people's ease." I 
leave it to you if this is not the same keynote struck by these 
two men. 



530 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

I am tired of the talk which makes of Lincoln a rude, un- 
gainly, demagogic jester. I am tired of the superficial criti- 
cism which makes of Washington a proud, self-satisfied Brit- 
ish Squire. (George III. did not think so.) One of these 
men was great enough to refuse a crown, the other great 
enough to accept a cross, for his country 's sake. Let us learn 
to recognize in both of these men, embodiments of the spirit 
of America, of the type of manhood which has made America ; 
and let us, if we love our country, get away from the notion 
that she is a happy accident! If we do not get away from 
that notion she will be an unhappy disaster. 

What are the ideals which belong to true Americanism? 
Here are some of them : 

To believe that the inalienable rights of man to life, liberty, 
and the pursuit of happiness are given by God. 

To believe that any form of power which tramples on those 
rights is unjust. 

To believe that freedom must be safeguarded by law, and 
that the end of freedom is fair play for everyone. 

To believe that the selfish interests of persons and factions 
must be subordinated to the welfare of the Commonwealth. 

To believe, not in a forced equality of conditions and es- 
tates, but in a true equalization of burdens and opportunities, 
so that ever}^ man shall have a fair chance. 

To believe that no class is sacred enough to rule the Repub- 
lic, and no mass great enough to ruin it. 

To believe, not that all men are good — for they are not — 
but that the way to make them better is to trust the whole 
people. 

To believe that the great Democracy should offer to all na- 
tions an example of virtue, sobriety, and square dealing. 

To believe that Church and State are absolutely independ- 
ent, and that both need real religion. 

These are vital elements in the faith of Americans; and 
to-night, as guests and grateful friends of the French Repub- 
lic, we profess our creed, we celebrate our heroic chiefs — 
Washington, who lived to create the Union ; Lincoln, who died 
to save it. We celebrate a republicanism which belongs 



THE COMMEMORATION ABROAD 531 

neither to the classes nor to the masses, a republicanism 
which has room for the unselfish aristocrat as well as for the 
noble democrat, a republicanism which speaks of self-reliance, 
fair play, common order, self-development, and a country 
which belongs to all — from Washington to Lincoln, to Cleve- 
land, to Roosevelt, to Taft. 



532 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



EOME, ITALY 
THE AMERICAN UNION AND ITALY * 

HON. LLOYD C. GRISCOM 

AS we are all enjoying, for the moment, the hospitality 
of the Kingdom of Italy, it seems to me that we should 
not let this occasion pass without some expression of our 
heartfelt sympathy with a people so recently stricken with 
the most disastrous calamity which has ever been recorded in 
the history of nations. I am sure I justly interpret the 
imanimous sentiment of this assembly when I express to the 
government, and to the people of Italy, our condolence in this 
hour of suffering and misery, and our admiration for the cour- 
ageous manner in which the whole nation has nobly risen to 
meet the blow. 

Italy may well be proud of her brave soldiers and sailors, 
who are still carrying on the humane work of relief ; but 
above aU she is to be congratulated upon having at this mo- 
ment two sovereigns, who, at the first word of the disaster, 
proceeded to the scene of horror, and there, by their untir- 
ing efforts, brought succor and comfort to the suffering peo- 
ple, and gave an inspiring and illuminating example to the 
Italian nation, and, indeed, to the whole world. It is not in 
Italy alone that the humane deeds of King Victor Emmanuel 
III. and Queen Helena are justly admired and will be perma- 
nently remembered. 

It requires a leap of memory over well nigh fifty years to 
recall that once, when we in America had our period of trial 
and suffering, we received from Italy a sympathy and en- 
couragement which was sorely needed. It takes us to the time 

* An address delivered, February 12, at a Lincoln Banquet at Rome, 
Italy. 



THE COMMEMORATION ABROAD 533 

when Abraham Lincoln was President, and when, for four 
bitter years civil war devastated the fairest section of the 
American continent. In Europe generally, the Southern Con- 
federacy received the greatest sympathy, based largely on com- 
mercial interests, but in Italy the cause of human liberty and 
of national unity for which Lincoln stood the champion, was 
the cause which appealed to the people and received its un- 
wavering support. 

The fact is written large in the archives of the Embassy 
which I have the honor to occupy. One of my most illustrious 
predecessors, Mr. George P. Marsh, while Minister at Turin, 
wrote to our Government on June 27, 1861, four days after 
presenting his letters of credence, that the tenor of Baron 
Ricasoli's remarks left no room for doubt that his personal 
sympathies, as well as those of his Government, were entirely 
on the side of President Lincoln and the constituted author- 
ities of the Union. A year later, he wrote that there was no 
country in Europe where the cause of the American Union met 
with so warm and hearty a sympathy as in Italy, and that the 
Italian population was unanimous in its wishes for the triumph 
of the Federal cause. 

Again, a year later, in 1863, he wrote that the conduct of the 
Italian Government was the more entitled to a generous ap- 
preciation by the United States, because the cutting off of 
the supply of cotton by Northern naval operations was a se- 
vere injury to Italian industry. In the course of the four 
years of the Civil War, Marsh never had occasion to send to 
our Government a word of complaint of the attitude or con- 
duct of Italy. As early as June, 1861, Baron Ricasoli gave 
special police orders to prevent the sale of vessels or muni- 
tions of war to the South, and the hospitality of Italian ports 
was denied to Southern privateers. It seems appropriate to 
recall that, when other foreign nations were seriously con- 
tributing to the duration and bitterness of Lincoln's task, 
Italy never deviated from the path of friendship. 

At the risk of trespassing on your patience, I would like, 
at this moment, also to recall a curious and interesting his- 
torical incident which betrays the then existing under-current 



534, ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

of feeling between Italy and the United States. An Amer- 
ican historian, Mr. Nelson Gay — who should be here tonight, 
but who is engaged in a much nobler occupation of carrying 
relief to the mountain towns of Calabria — unearthed from the 
archives of our Embassy in Rome the long-concealed history 
of tire offer, by President Lincoln to General Garibaldi, of the 
command of one of the Northern armies. Garibaldi refused 
the offer, largely because the American Government had not 
yet decided upon the liberation of the slaves, which was the 
only cause which would have induced the Italian patriot to en- 
gage in the American struggle. The incident had no conse- 
quences, but it serves to show in what esteem Lincoln held 
Garibaldi, and what a powerful sway the name and reputa- 
tion of the great Italian patriot had in America at that time. 

It is in such moments of stress and tribulation that real 
ties and real friendships between nations are made. Hap- 
pily, the diplomatic intercourse between Italy and the United 
States is one long record of amity and good will. We are 
ever ready to recognize our indebtedness for the literary and 
artistic inspiration received from the land v/hich gave birth 
to Dante, to Petrarch, to Raphael, to Leonardo da Vinci, and 
to Michael Angelo. If further link were needed, we have only 
to recall that it is from an Italian that we have taken the name 
which is so dear to us — * * America. ' ' 

Your Chairman has given to me a task which is ever most 
welcome to an American representative. The toast of "The 
President of the United States" is one which thrills every 
thread of our patriotic fibre, and we may be pardoned if we 
seize upon the moment, even here in this most hospitable for- 
eign land, to indulge in an expression of the respect in which 
we hold the highest officer of our Government, and of the con- 
fidence we have in him and our institution. 

It is by such gatherings as this that we keep fresh within 
us the memory of our greatest heroes, and contribute our share 
to maintain the standards and ideals of our forefathers. 



THE MAN LINCOLN 

WILBUR D. NESBIT 

NOT as the great who grow more great 
Until they are from us apart — 
He walks with us in man 's estate ; 
We know he was a brother heart. 
The marching years may render dim 

The humanness of other men, 
To-day we are akin to him 
As they who knew him best were then. 

Wars have been won by mail-clad hands, 

Realms have been ruled by sword-hedged kings, 
But he above these others stands 

As one who loved the common things; 
The common faith of man was his. 

The common faith in man he had — 
For this to-day his brave face is 

A face half joyous and half sad. 

A man of earth ! Of earthy stuff, 

As honest as the fruitful soil. 
Gnarled as the friendly trees, and rough 

As hillsides that had known his toil; 
Of earthy stuff — let it be told, 

For earth-born men rise and reveal 
A courage fair as beaten gold 

And the enduring strength of steel, 
535 



536 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

So now he dominates our thought, 

This humble great man holds us thus 
Because of all he dreamed and wrought, 

Because he is akin to us. 
He held his patient trust in truth 

While God was working out His plan, 
And they that were his foes, forsooth, 

Came to pay tribute to the Man. 

Not as the great who grow more great 

Until they have a mystic fame — 
No stroke of pastime nor of fate 

Gave Lincoln his undying name. 
A common man, earth-bred, earth-born, 

One of the breed who work and wait — 
His was a soul above all scorn, 

His was a heart above all hate. 



ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 



ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 

THE editor of this volume wishes briefly to mention again 
the obligation that the city of Chicago is under for the 
splendid work of the Lincoln Centennial Memorial Committee 
of One Hundred, appointed by Hon. Fred A. Busse, Mayor 
of Chicago, and to give a list of that committee, with the offi- 
cers and its sub-committees. The scope and magnitude of the 
Chicago celebration, the participation therein of all classes 
of citizens, the lack of friction in the carrying out of the plans 
of the Committee, the general success and wide publicity 
achieved, were largely due to the able leadership of Hon. Wil- 
liam J. Calhoun, the distinguished President of the Committee 
of One Hundred. 

He also wishes to take this opportunity of thanking by name 
some of the men who helped make the week in Chicago a suc- 
cess, and regrets that this acknowledgment will have to be 
confined to those connected with the official celebrations, as 
to attempt to name the hundreds of speakers and organiza- 
tions, or the thousands of earnest and effective committeemen, 
who helped to make the general celebration memorable in the 
history of the city would take a volume in itself. 

THE LINCOLN CENTENNIAL MEMORIAL COMMIT- 
TEE OF ONE HUNDRED was appointed by the Mayor of 
Chicago, under the following resolution introduced in the 
Chicago City Council by Alderman Albert J. Fisher on March 
16, 1908, and unanimously adopted: 

WHEREAS, The memory and public acts of Pres- 
ident Abraham Lincoln of Illinois have become the 
priceless heritage of the people, irrespective of, and 
above all party lines and affiliations ; and 
539 



540 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 

WHEREAS, ]\Iovements are in progress through- 
out this State to fittingly recognize and commemorate 
the centennial year of his nativity, 1909 ; and 

WHEREAS, It is only proper that this metropolis 
in which Lincoln received his nomination for the 
high office of President, should bear its full part in 
such proposed memorial; therefore 

RESOLVED, That His Honor, the Mayor, do ap- 
point a Lincoln Memorial Commission, whose duty 
it shall be to cooperate with other like committees 
throughout the State to the end that this city govern- 
ment shall be properly represented in such memorial 
proceedings, and shall contribute to their promotion 
its proper share of assistance and encouragement. 
This Committee, originally a committee of one hundred, by 
the additions to its various constituent committees was con- 
siderably augmented in numbers. It was organized as fol- 
lows: 

OFFICERS 

President Ho7i. William J. Calhoun 

First Vice-President Aid. Albert J. Fisher 

Second Vice-President Charles R. Crane 

Third Vice-President George W. Perkins 

Secretary Nathan William MacChesney 

Treasurer Leroy A. Goddard 

CHAIRMEN OF SUB - COMMITTEES 

Executive William J. Calhoun 

Speakers, Halls and Schools .... Edgar A. Bancroft 
Military Participation .... Col. Joseph Rosenhaum 
Publicity, T. Edward Wilder, Joseph Basch, Shailer Mathews 
Music, Art, and Decorations . . . Alexander H. Revell 
Church and Institutional 

Observance Judge C. C. Kohlsaat 

Reception and Entertainment . . William J. Calhoun 



ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 



541 



Finance Arthur Meeker 

Permanent Memorial . . Nathan William MacChesney 
Conference and Unification of 

Celebration Frank Earnlin 



COMMITTEE OF ONE HUNDRED 



Anderson, Bishop C. P. 
Bigelow, Edward A. 
Boyden, William C. 
Baker, Charles A. 
Bancroft, Edgar A, 
Brundage, Edward J. 
Biirch, William A. 
Brentano, Judge Theodore 
Cheney, Bishop Charles Ed- 
ward 
Culver, Dr. Forest E. 
Callaghan, Rev, J. P. 
Crane, Charles R. 
Calhoun, William J. 
Clarke, Arthur L. 
Cigrand, Dr. B. J, 
Dunn, Aid. Winfield P. 
Eckhart, Bernard A. 
Earle, Dr. Frank B. 
Everest, Col. J. G. 
Eastman, John C. 
Eaton, Marquis 
Fallows, Bishop Samuel 
Fisher, Aid. Albert J. 
Follansbee, INIitchell D. 
Finn, Aid. Nicholas R. 
Farr, Marvin A. 
Forgan, David R. 
Favill, Dr. Henry B. 
Faye, Charles M. 
Furey, Charles H. 



Foreman, Col. Milton J. 
Glessner, J. J. 
Gregory, S. S. 
Glogauer, Fritz 
Goddard, Leroy A. 
Grant, Gen. Frederick D. 
Gunsaulus, Rev. F. W. 
Heckman, Wallace 
Hamlin, Frank 
Hanberg, John J, 
Hinman, George W. 
Hall, Richard C. 
Hirsch, Rabbi Emil G. 
Hutchinson, Charles L. 
Harris, Abram W. 
Judson, Harry Pratt 
Jones, Frank H. 
Jones, Rev. Jenkin Lloyd 
Keep, Chauncy 
Kohlsaat, Judge C. C. 
Kohlsaat, H. H. 
Kelly, John T. 
Kelly, Rev. Edward A. 
Keeley, James 
Lathrop, Bryan 
Lagorio, Dr. A. 
Lawrence Andrew 
MacChesney, Nathan Wil- 
liam 
MeCormick, Robert R. 
McCormick, Harold F. 



542 



ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 



McCormick, Medill 
McClurg, Ogden T. 
MacVeagh, Eames 
Mack, Judge Julian "W. 
JMitcliell, John J. 
Mullaney, B. J. 
Murphy, Dr. John B. 
McNally, James 
Meeker, Arthur 
McFatrich, Dr. J. B. 
Morris, Ira N. 
Muldoon, Bishop P. J. 
Michaelis, W. R. 
Masters, Edgar Lee 
Mills, S. B. 
Metz, John 
Noyes, Frank B. 
O'Keefe, P. J. 
Olson, Chief Justice Harry 
Purdy, Capt. W. F. 
Perkins, George W. 
Quigley, Archbishop James E. 
Roth, John C. 
Revell, Alexander H. 
Reynolds, George M. 
Roberts, George 



Roberts, E. L. 
Reilly, Leigh 
Rosenbaum, Col. Joseph 
Rosenwald, Julius 
Simmons, Francis T. 
Sunny, B. E. 
Snow, Aid. B. W. 
Sprague, Albert A., 11. 
Sullivan, Roger C. 
Simpson, James 
Shedd, John G. 
Sutherland, George 
Shaffer, J. C. 
Schneider, Otto C. 
Thompson, Capt. S. B. 
Tenney, Horace Kent 
Taylor, Aid. Francis AV. 
Tolman, Maj. Edgar Bronson 
Upham, Fred W. 
Wacker, Charles H. 
Wilson, John P. 
Walker, Francis W, 
Wilder T. Edward 
Young, Gen. E. C. 
Zimmer, Aid. Michael 



The following named gentlemen, after the organization of 
the Committee under the authority given to it by the Mayor, 
were added to the original Committee of One Hundred: 



Arnold, Lt. William 
Anderson, John 
Barber, Maj. Frank W. 
Brown, Frederick A. 
Basch, Joseph 
Brand, Horace L. 
Browning, Granville W. 
Burry, George 



Burley, Clarence A. 
Chenowith, Maj. W. H. 
Cassidy, Maj. Harry C. 
Chamberlain, Capt. Henry B. 
Carey, Rev. A. J. 
Cooley, Harlan W. 
Crossley, Frederick B. 
Dietrich, Col. Henry A. 



ACKNOWLEDGxMENTS 



543 



Dixon, George W. 
Deranek, Charles 
De Blois, Rev. Austin K. 
Foster, Gen. D. Jack. 
Fisher, George P., Jr. 
Freimd, Ernst 
Garrity, Col. John J. 
Greene, Col. Lewis D. 
Ginzburg, M. P. 
Greztad, N. 
Holt, Charles S. 
Hart, Louis E. 
Holland, John F. 
Kline, Col. Julius R. 
Knapp, Kemper K. 
]\Ioriarty, Col. Daniel 
Marshall, Col. John R. 
Mathews, Shailer 
McCalla, Capt. Lee A. 
McDowell, Bishop W. F. 
Milbum, Rev. Joseph A. 
Merbitz, Rev. F. P. 
Montgomery, John R. 
Marston, Thomas B. 
Moore, Nathan G. 
Musgrave, Harrison 
Morse, Charles F. 



Matz, Rudolph 
Norcross, Frederick F. 
Oakley, Horace S. 
Phillips, Lt. E. 0. 
Parker, Hon. Francis W. 
Robeson, Lt. Col. T. Jay 
Rogers, Edward S. 
Rumsey, George D. 
Smith, Henry A, 
Sanborn, Col. Joseph B. 
Strong, Col, Gordon 

Strong 
Szwajkart, Stanislus 
Stevens, Charles A. 
Shaw, Rev. John Balcom 
Sellers, Frank H. 
Sidley, William P. 
Tenney, Horace K. 
Thompson, Col. John R. 
Vance, Rev. Joseph A. 
Wood, John H. 
Willard, Norman P. 
Waldo, Otis H. 
Wheeler, Arthur D. 
Wigmore, John H. 
Woolman, Lt. Maurice 
Zane, John M. 



In addition to the general Committee there were a large 
number of citizens who served on various sub-committees, es- 
pecially in connection with the splendid work of the Finance 
Committee under the chairmanship of Mr. Arthur Meeker, 
Among those who served on these sub-committees were: 



Allen, W. D. 
Allen, Benjamin C, 
Bunnell, John A. 
Brown, M. L. 
Buswell, H. G. 



Chester, H. W. 
Crane, R. T., Jr. 
Childs, C. Fred 
Dixon, Thomas J, 
Dickinson, William 



544 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 

Fuller, Frank Lytton, George, Jr. 

Hill, C. H. Miller, John S. 

Hahn, H. F. Phillips, W. E. 

Ingwersen, Emil Peacock, C. D., Jr. 

Kesner, J. L. Schweppe, Charles 

Kline, Samuel J. Tighe, Bryan, G. 

Kimball, C. N. Wiehe, C. F. 

Karpen, Adolph Young, H. W. 
Leahy, Harold F. 

Aside from the members of the committees throughout the 
city, who contributed to the success of the celebration, the 
editor desires to thank on behalf of the Committee those who 
assisted it at the various official celebrations. Among these 
were: 

At the Auditorium Meeting 

Frederick A. Brown, Esq., Committeeman-in-charge ; Carl D. 
Kinsey, General Musical Director ; William Ap Madoc, Direc- 
tor of the Chorus; the three hundred Chicago High School 
pupils who formed the splendid Chorus; Wilhelm Middel- 
schulte, the Organist; Rev. Maurice J. Dorney, who asked the 
Invocation ; Rev. Joseph A. Vance, D. D., who offered the clos- 
ing Prayer. 

At the Seventh Regiment, III. N. G., Armory 

Rev. Charles Baird Mitchell, D. D., who asked the Invoca- 
tion and pronounced the Benediction; Col. Daniel Mori- 
arty, Commanding the Seventh Infantry, which gave the use 
of its Armory, both for the afternoon meeting and the meeting 
in the evening for the colored citizens; Lieut. George B. 
Reed ; Mr. John Ryan of the Seventh Infantry ; The Seventh 
Infantry Band, Paul Smith, Director; The Irish Choral So- 
ciety under the leadership of Professor Taylor Drill. 

At the Second Regiment, III. N. G., Armory 

Harlan W. Cooley, Esq., Committeeman-in-charge; Col. 
John J. Garrity, Commanding the Second Infantry, which ten- 



ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 545 

dered the use of its Armory to the Committee and which 
assisted it in every way; Rev. Austin K. De Blois, who pro- 
nounced the Invocation; The Second Infantry Band, Paul 
Goepfert, Director; Madame Anita Patti Brown, the colored 
singer; The Virginia Quartette; Rev. Thomas V. Shannon, 
who pronounced the Benediction, 

At the Battery B, III. N. G., Armory 

Eames MaeVeagh, Esq., Committeeman-in-charge ; Col. Mil- 
ton J. Foreman of the First Cavalry, who acted as Chair- 
man pro tern.; Maj. Joseph C. Wilson of the First Cavalry; 
Lt. Maurice Woolman of Battery B; Rev. Father Basil A. 
Didier; Miss Genevieve De Forrest, Soloist; Mr. Charles E. 
Hay, Soloist; First Cavalry, 111. N. G. Band, A. Fisher, Di- 
rector; The Colored Jubilee Singers; Rev. Fred V. Hawley, 
who pronounced the Benediction. 

At the Meeting op the Eighth Infantry (Colored), and 

THE Colored Citizens' Committee, at the Seventh 

Regiment, III. N. G., Armory 

Hon. George W. Dixon, Committeeman-in-charge ; Col. John 
R. Marshall, Commanding the Eighth Infantry; Pedro T. 
Tinsley, Director of the Choral Study Club ; The Choral Study 
Club; Rt. Rev. Charles Edward Cheney, DD., S.T.D., who 
gave the opening Prayer; J. Gray Lucus, Esq. ; E. P. McCabe, 
Esq.; W. H. Clark, Esq.; The Eighth Regiment Band, Wil- 
liam E. Berry, Chief musician; Rev. Moses H. Jackson, who 
pronounced the Benediction. 

At the Dexter Park Pavilion 

E. L. Roberts, P. J. O'Keefe, Geo. W. Perkins, Committee- 
in-charge; Arthur Meeker, Chairman; John A. Spoor of the 
International Live Stock Exposition Company, for the use of 
the Amphitheater ; Rt. Rev. Paul C. Rhode, who gave a short 
address and the Invocation; five hundred members of the 
Chorus from the singing societies and church choirs of the 
city; Clarence Dickinson, Director of the Chorus; The Apollo 



5i6 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 

Quartette ; Madame Ragna Linne, Miss Jennie F. W. Johnson, 
Edward C. Towne, William Wade Hinshaw, Katherine How- 
ard, Soloists; First Regiment Band, J. F. Hostrawser, Direc- 
tor; Miss Imogen S. Pierce, to whose initiative and untiring 
efforts the success of the meeting was largely due ; Rev. W, H. 
Head, D.D., who pronounced the Benediction. 

In Connection with the Outdoor Celebration 

Captain W. G. Purdy, commanding the Illinois Naval Re- 
serve, and the officers and men of that organization, which 
gave an impressive street parade on the Centenary Day, end- 
ing with the firing of the national salute of twenty-one guns, 
before the statue of Lincoln, at the south end of Lincoln Park. 

The Committee and the community are under obligation, 
also, to Professor Shailer Mathews for his enthusiasm and 
broad vision in connection with the possibilities of the celebra- 
tion. To his efforts is due the splendid educational character 
of the commemoration. 

The editor also washes to take this occasion to thank Mr. 
William Marshall Ellis, who assisted him as Secretary of the 
general Committee and whose constant attention to the many 
demands upon the office of the general Committee, and ready 
and willing effort to cooperate with everyone for the success 
of the movement, was a large factor in directing, unifying and 
making successful the hundreds of celebrations in the City of 
Chicago. 

The Committee also expresses appreciation to the McCor- 
mick Estates and to Mr. John A. Chapman for the use of 
offices for the general Committee, without compensation; to 
the Northwestern University Law School, its Dean, John H. 
Wigmore, and its S> ^retary, Frederick B. Crossley, for the use 
of Northwestern TJ iversity Law School rooms for scores of 
meetings of the Committee; to the Chicago Telephone Com- 
pany for the telephone service furnished without charge; to 
the Chicago newspapers, both daily and weekly, English and 
foreign, which without exception gave their hearty coopera- 



ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 547 

tion to the work of the Committee ; and to the many others who 
but for lack of space should be mentioned in this connection. 
Undoubtedly, in the pressure of the preparation of this vol- 
ume for the press, and in the handling of enormous masses 
of correspondence and data, there have occurred various omis- 
sions of well-earned acknowledgment, and even errors of nar- 
ration. For all such, the editor asks indulgence, expressing 
here his regret therefor, and his appreciation of the unselfish 
and untiring services of all who were connected in any way 
with America's unprecedented celebration of the Lincoln Cen- 
tenary. 



J9 

a 



INDEX 



INDEX 



Abolitionists, 174, 289, 290, 305, 

396 
Adams, Charles Francis, minister 

to England during Civil War, 

420-424 
Anti-slavery days, 326, 327, 392, 

393 

B 

Benjamin, Judah P., 121, 122 
British Government and United 
States, their relations during 
Civil War period, 41, 42, 50- 
53, 210, 222, 223, 303, 305, 
331, 420-423, 425, 514 
Brown, Hon. George, founder and 
editor of The Toronto Glohe, 

46, 47, 49, 50, 52 
Brown, John, 45. 

C 

Canada, Lincoln's significance to, 
and political situation in, 35, 
42-44, 46, 47, 49, 50; slavery 
in, 44, 46; refuge for fugitive 
slaves, 44, 45; Southerners 
and their sympathizers go to, 
at outbreak of war, 47, 48; 
attitude of, during Civil War, 

47, 48 

Canadians in Union Army, 48, 49 
Carr, Col. Clark E., 65 
Cautious men, 20 
Chase, Salmon P., 302, 303, 419, 
503, 504 



Civil War, closed, 12; causes 
which made inevitable, 33 ; 
had its counterpart in Can- 
ada, 43 ; attitude of Canada 
during, 47, 48; Lincoln and 
Grant during, 144-147 ; out- 
break of, 302, 329, 330, 348, 
446, 452; conduct of, 304, 
331; cost of, 306; a "peo- 
ple's war," 450; attitude of 
England toward, see British 
Government and United 
States, their relations during 
Civil War period; attitude of 
Italy toward, 533 

Congress, Lincoln's relations with, 
500, 501, 504, 505; in recon- 
struction period, 502, 503 

Conversation, the business of life, 
19 

" Cotton, King," as determining 
agent in war, 51, 52, 286, 287, 
514 

D 

Darwin, Charles, as great contem- 
porary of, and compared with, 
Lincoln, 15, 16, 78, 310, 410- 
412 
Davis, David, 69, 162, 208 
Davis, Jefferson, 38, 48, 202 
Democracy in North America, 35, 

37-43, 46, 47, 53, 54 
Democratic party, 69, 141, 142 
Douglas, Stephen A., 117, 121, 122, 
162, 288, 324, 378, 393, 394, 
398, 409; see also under Lin- 
coln, debates with Douglas 



551 



552 



INDEX 



Dred Scott decision, 120, 140, 288, 

324, 367 
Drummond, Thomas, 162, 227 



H 

Hay, John, 243, 447 



E 

" Egypt " ( Southern Illinois) , 402, 
403 

Emancipation Proclamation, 44, 
49, 55, 62, 91, 12G, 223, 224, 
237, 290, 295, 306, 331, 332, 
369, 453-456, 474, 487, 525 

England, see under British Govern- 
ment 

Everett, Hon. Edward, orator at 
Gettysburg dedication, 65, 
136, 137, 369 



Illinois fittingly gives tribute to 
Lincoln, 33, 76, 84; legal 
practice and courts in, dur- 
ing Lincoln's life, 154-164, 
201, 203-209, 211, 225-227, 
268; the State between 1837 
and 1861, 160; in Lincoln's 
boyhood, 389 



Jackson, "Stonewall," 33 
Japanese relations with United 
States, 244-246 



France, career of Lincoln followed 
in, 191, 192, 194 

Freedom and slavery, conflict be- 
tween, 39, 40, 53, 54, 173, 234 

Freeport debate, 140-142, 210, 402; 
see also under Lincoln, de- 
bates with Douglas 

Fugitive Slave Act, 44-46 

Fugitive slaves, 44, 45 

G 

Garibaldi compared with Lincoln, 
116; offered command in 
Northern army, 534 

Gettysburg address, see under Lin- 
coln 

Gladstone, William E., great con- 
temporary of Lincoln, 15, 16, 
368 

Golden Rule in diplomacy, 243, 
244, 246 

Grant, Ulysses S., 143-147, 269, 
270, 304, 330 

Greeley, Horace, 62, 69, 70, 72, 
122, 290, 303, 304, 348, 448 



K 

Kansas-Nebraska Bill, 231 
King of Jvome contrasted with 
Lincoln, 113, 114 



Labor question, slavery a phase 

of the, 276, 290-293 
Leader of a nation, essentials of, 

24-27 
Lee, Robert E., 33, 437 
Lincoln, Abraham — 

family of, 319, 410, 483 
belonged by birth to South, 59, 

73, 134, 176, 264, 497 
youth of, 16, 17, 19, 59-61, 73, 
114, 131-134, 154, 175, 178, 
179, 192, 195, 256, 261, 267, 
268, 294-298, 319-321, 343, 
362-364, 376, 389, 390 
self-trained, and investigating 
for himself, 59, 61, 63, 131- 
134, 138, 160, 176, 178, 193, 
296-298, 320, 321, 363, 364, 
377 



INDEX 



553 



education, see self-trained, etc. 
personal appearance, 22, 70, 71, 

277, 309, 318, 517 
story of his life familiar, 14, 

34, 154, 280, 343 
language used by, 59, 64, 66, 67, 

120, 121, 138, 278, 297, 335, 

336, 420-422 J see also as 

orator 
stories told concerning, 19, 116, 

120, 300, 307, 308, 339, 404, 

487, 525 
wit and humor of, 20, 21, 81, 

172, 173, 188, 299, 307, 308, 

335, 486 
story-telling characteristic of, 

21, 80, 307, 394 
characteristics of, 18-32, 34, 36, 

54, 55, 61-64, 68, 71-73, 114- 
122, 138, 159-162, 172, 173, 
176-178, 193, 201, 202, 211, 
220, 242, 255-260, 263-266, 
282-285, 298-304, 306-310, 
318, 321, 329, 330, 334-342, 
356, 364-369, 376-381, 394, 
395, 451, 453, 456, 457, 462- 
467, 474-478, 486-488, 490, 
500, 501, 503, 504, 513, 514, 
517, 524, 525 
of frontierman and pioneer type, 

22, 23, 60-64, 66, 319, 389 
patent taken out by, 61 

his belief in dreams, 74, 486 
religion of, 81, 125-127, 282, 

283, 336, 369 
an optimist, 31 

isolation of, 16, 54, 55, 178, 179 
prophetic imagination of, 257, 

486 
conversation important to, 19 
an all-round man — a " man of 
the people " — not represent- 
ing a class or profession, 23- 
27, 36, 62, 63, 101, 138, 176, 
490 



admission to the bar and law 
practice, 154-165, 171, 201, 
203-209, 211, 225-227, 268, 
296—300, 322, 323, 378 

in State legislature, 154, 159, 
165, 166, 175, 204-207, 300, 
321, 322, 325, 377, 378, 447 

speeches (other than debates 
and Cooper Institute speech), 
Bloomington, 1856 and 1858, 
225, 228, 232-238, 395-397; 
Springfield, 1858, 234 

"lost speech," 238, 396 

senatorial campaign of 1858, 36, 
141, 186, 285, 325, 327, 397- 
399, 408, 443 

debates with Douglas, 83, 120, 
135, 140-142, 171, 176, 177, 
185-188, 210, 234, 268, 285, 
301, 302, 325, 327, 336, 339, 
368, 378, 391, 393-395, 399- 

407, 443, 497 

Cooper Institute speech, 135, 136, 
171, 176, 177, 234, 277, 278, 
281, 285, 286, 328, 336, 337, 

408, 443 

nomination and presidential cam- 
paign, 68-70, 177, 185, 191, 
236, 277, 281, 295, 302, 328, 
444 

as President, 37, 38, 171, 172. 
210, 302, 303, 307, 309, 329, 
378, 381, 445-448, 451, 452 

abused and lampooned, 11, 62, 
68, 70, 71, 123, 124, 258, 347. 
348, 355, 366-368, 375, 370, 
380, 452, 497 

First Inaugural Address, 39, 121, 
127, 139, 152, 163, 168, 192, 
221, 255, 264, 337, 445, 481, 
496 

Second Inaugural Address, 59, 
149, 218, 268, 269, 297, 321, 
337, 369 

Gettysburg address, 57, 59, 64- 



554 



INDEX 



66, 136-138, 165-170, 188, 268, 

297, 310, 368, 369, 498 
as orator, 185-189, 268, 301, 368 
Emancipation Proclamation, see 

under Emancipation 
Cabinet, relations with, 122, 268, 

302-304, 419-422, 424-428, 

446, 447, 449, 450, 486, 503 
Congress, relations with, 500, 

501, 504, 505 
his calls for men, 39, 294, 446 
his personal conduct of the war, 

304, 307, 447, 453 

his determination to save the 
Union, 12, 39, 124, 144, 221, 

305, 348, 351, 352, 355, 356, 
446, 448, 449 

as diplomat, 41, 42, 242, 243, 
246; see also British Govern- 
ment and United States, 
their relations during Civil 
War period 

his significance to democracy, 
35-44, 46, 47, 50, 53, 54 

the world-citizen, 34, 53, 54 

how regarded by the South, 33, 
148-152 

relations with U. S. Grant, 143- 
147; see also Grant, U. S. 

autobiography of, 231 

and the negroes, 332-334, 338 

statesmanship of, 82-84, 118, 
119, 223 

greatness of, 33, 34, 99, 172- 
174, 207, 341, 342, 347, 462, 
477, 478, 485, 490 

death of, 34, 35, 142, 150, 152, 
194, 221, 265, 266, 269, 279, 
310, 340, 370, 428, 429 

his remains lie in state, 58, 310 

reaction of feeling occasioned 
by his death, 11, 68, 310, 334, 
347 

duration of public career, 171 
uncompleted life of, 18, 221, 222 



lessons to be learned from, 56- 
58, 128, 129, 172, 224, 258, 
344, 370, 371, 376, 387, 388, 
413 
inspired words true of, 370 
quotations from, 36, 57, 74, 115, 
118, 125-127, 146, 147, 149, 152, 
103, 166-168, 170, 173, 202, 
231, 233, 234, 255, 264, 269, 
283-291, 293, 300, 301, 321, 
324, 348-350, 356, 381, 397, 
398, 403-408, 444, 448, 449, 
454, 455, 496 
Lovejoy, Owen, Lincoln's estimate 
of, 503 



M 



Marshall, Chief Justice, 165-170 

McCormick, Cyrus, 85, 209, 424 

Mexican War, 301, 405 

Missouri Compromise and its re- 
peal, 46, 140, 163, 219, 229, 
230, 237, 287, 288, 302 

Monuments to soldiers, 151; to 
great men, 271, 272 

Myths, 345 



N 



Napoleon compared with Wash- 
ington and Lincoln, 472, 473 

Negro, problem of the, 92-98, 104- 
112; cause of Civil War, 104, 
106 

Negro soldiers in war. 111, 331 

Negroes and Lincoln, 332-334, 338 

New York, impossible to conceive 
of Lincoln as having been 
born in, 23 

Nineteenth century, significant 
events of, 14, 15, 174, 217, 
218, 364 

North, the, honors Southern lead- 
ers, 33 



INDEX 



555 



Ordinance of 1787, 228, 229, 237 



Poe, Edgar Allan, as great con- 
temporary of Lincoln, 15, 16, 
310 

" Popular sovereignty," 230, 231, 
288, 302 

R 

Reconstruction period, 73, 266, 

337-339 
Republican party, platform of, 300 
Revolution, causes which made in- 
evitable, 33; furnished an ar- 
guable case for secession, 38 
Riches, encumbrance of, 20 
Rodin's statues likened to Lin- 
coln, 17 

S 

Saint-Gaudens' statues of Lincoln, 

179 
Schurz, Carl, 123, 349 
Scott, Lieut.-Gen. (by brevet), 144 
Secession, 37, 38, 210, 262, 263, 

329, 347, 352, 437 
Seward, William H., Secretary of 

State, 42, 69, 70, 72, 142, 193, 

223, 234, 243, 302, 303, 331, 

419-422, 450 
Slavery, 36, 38-40, 44, 83, 140, 

175, 186, 233, 263, 264, 286- 

290, 295, 301, 302, 305, 300, 

323, 324, 396, 447, 448, 494- 

496 
Slaves, proposition to buy, 73, 

306, 307 
Soldiers, surviving, 267 
South, the, honors Lincoln, 33, 

148, 150-152, 266, 337, 495, 



499; Lincoln belonged by 
birth to, 59, 73, 134, 170, 264, 
497 ; relation to Union after 
war, 74, 150 

Southerners, writings of, their in- 
fluence upon Lincoln, 135 

" Squatter sovereignty," 288, 324 

Stanton, Edwin M., 209, 419, 424- 
429, 449, 489 

State rights, 352-355 

State sovereignty, 38, 165 

Studiousness, the quality of, 21 

Sumner, Charles, 339 

Swett, Leonard, 162, 163 



Tennyson, Alfred, as great con- 
temporary of Lincoln, 15, 55, 
56 

Theories, 21 

Trent affair, see British Govern- 
ment and United States, their 
relations during Civil War 
period 

U 

" Uncle Tom's Cabin," influence of, 

46, 326 
" Underground Railroad," 45 

W 

Washington, Booker T., 108 
Washington, George, contrasted 

with Lincoln, 36, 67, 68, 190, 

221, 257, 269, 270, 279, 341. 

346, 347, 356, 364, 365, 437, 

472, 473, 527-531; held title 

of Lieut.-Gen., 144 
West, the, as factor in destiny of 

nation, 85, 86, 175, 176 
Wliitman, Walt, 74; his lines, 

" O Captain ! My Captain ! " 

quoted, 75 



lRBMy'?8 



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